Taking The Offer And Living Desire

Taking The Offer And  Living Desire

We, my husband and I found out the we were expecting and our hearts were bursting with joy. We stopped at target the other day to pick up shoes for our 2 year old when I began to spot. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, which began to sink into the depths of despair. This was a gift and I was venerable and did not keep it secret for in the surrendering of this outcome. My thoughts began to receive darting messages of, Why would God want to take the gift that he gave my husband on fathers day weekend? We came home quickly and we began to pray. Releasing the whole outcome of what could happen. The ache from past miscarriages set fresh on my delicate heart. I found myself trying to figure out what I had done wrong. It did not take long for me to slip into a familiar coat of shame. The reintroduction of a old lie that there is something profoundly wrong with me. The sicking truth is I had not miscarried I had just spotted and I was already assuming that this was all to good to be true.  The assault from the enemy is ruthless in his pursuit to shatter the heart and pervert the interpretation of the heart of God.

Our oldest daughter came quietly in the room and sat sadly on the edge of the bed. Her eyes filled with tears as she asked if the baby was going to die? I could not relieve her sadness for mines was on every unspoken word. We prayed together and with a heavy heart she walked quietly out of the room. 

With strength and tenderness my husband came in and offered redirection. Thank God!. Why are you allowing yourself to act like you have already lost our child? "He asked," How you act now could determine how this whole thing ends up. He was painfully right. There is a huge difference in releasing the have to of expectations and killing desire. 

How many of us desire something so badly and so purely that when we get it there is a remanent of disbelief. While I was in Target our enemy saw the fear fill my face and tears fall from my eyes and he new he had me. Nothing better for him to steal the joy we were experiencing as a family. With out even taking captive my thinking I believed the worst because I had said it earlier before we knew for sure. That if we were pregnant it would be to good to be true. Nothing like opening the door for the enemy.

The thing is that we desire so much and receive very little of what we think we desire. I longed for a family that loved me and saw me as something valuable. I did not know that the whole time God was trying to give me this awesome desire I fought him the entire way. Finally four years ago he gave not just me but my husband and children that greatest family in the world. "The Church" not just any church but he started with one glorious light in a small town in Duvall.

 

What about desiring to have a spiritual leader in your home. I know so many woman who have talked cried and wept for this desire to be filled. Yet I would say nearly most of those same woman will not let control go so that God can take control with their man. This desiring and not getting what we desire has so much to do with are we willing to get out of the way. 

A few years ago I was ranting on my husband about how he needed to lead me or I was going to have to do it myself. I constantly was asking him if he was spending time with God. Finally with righteous anger my husband told me bluntly to "butt out of the relationship between him and God". All I had done in that moment was kill any desire he had to spend time with God and he was more irritated and not only did he not want to spend time with God but time with me was out of the question. There is nothing like spending time with someone who does not think that you measure up. A wise woman and friend said once that to the depth and passion that we love our husbands is to the depth and passion that we love the Lord. I was convicted to say the least. How I behaved was not how I thought I loved God, yet it was how I treated the very man that he gave me to lead me, to fight for me, and to love me the way he loves me. 

I had to make a change. Would I be willing to let everything fall apart according to the order in which I believed I was managing? Would I not pick it up and let God and my husband pick it up? Would I be willing to trust God past my past experiences? Although up to this point I had never given up complete control so to say I had done it before is not true. What I am referring to in past experiences is when you are betrayed by the very people who have power over you. Father, Mother, older or more dominate brothers or sisters, and Pastors. Not to mention the relationships that we had before coming into our marriages. Would I let things fall apart and not respond to the red flags flying of "We all know where this leads". Would I let the flags crumble in the wind? 

This has not been an easy journey to say the least and I pickup control less and less. I do need to say that this journey of release has been more rewarding than I have words to write. Watching my husband lead and trusting his leadership has made him more desirable to me than ever before. He carries leadership with strength, where I unwillingly would admit that I struggled to carry. Our men were born to lead to fight and to fiercely defend. There is nothing better than watching this happen and never have I ever felt more beautiful and loved by the Lord. 

In the book "Desire" John talks about desire like this: "The time has come for us to stop playing chess with God over our lives. We cannot win, but we can delay the victory, dragging on the pain of grasping and the poison of possessing. There are two kinds of losses in life. The first is shared by all mankind the losses that come to us. Call them what you will, fate acts of God. The point is that we have no control over them. We don determine when, where, what, or even how. There is no predicting these losses; they happen to us. We choose only how we respond. The second kind is known only to the pilgrim. They are the losses that we choose. A chosen loss is different from repentance, when we give up something that was never ours to have. With a chosen loss, we place on the altar something very dear to us, something innocent, whose only danger is in its goodness, that we might come to love it too much. It is an act of consecration, where little by little or all at once, we give over our lives to the only One who can truly keep them. 

Spiritual surrender is not resignation. It is not choosing to care no longer. Jan a friend of John's describes, "It is a surrender with desire, or in desire." Desire is still present, felt welcomed even. But the will to secure is made subject to the divine will in an act of abandoned trust.

Will I surrender on the alter of Jesus Christ all the direction of my life fully trusting him past the planned outcome of my circumstance? To come boldly to the lover of my soul and ask in thanksgiving according to the desires which he has given, while all the while laying down the outcome and its timing. Moving to AZ and letting go of my beloved church has been one finger at a time. The offer of release has come in gentle laps of release. One finger at a time I have laid down at the alter my desperate need and longing to be seen and known for truly who I am with an abandon trust that God sees me and knows me and will lift me higher then the sparrows. It is not that I no longer desire my beloveds but it is coming to the realization that they we never just mine. My children are not just mine, nor is my marriage. Letting it all go, while my desires burning brighter than ever has been filled me with more glory that can only be described in holy worship!