After we read it Sunday morning, I asked her, "Is there anything we need to relinquish?" She said, "No, we're not demanding anything of the Lord. Just asking for His timing and way."
Within hours we were back for another long night in the ER. She was diagnosed with a serious kidney infection, and by midnight she was having a stent put in to deal with kidney infection.
“Abba, Father,” He said, “everything
is possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will,
but what You
will.” Mark 14:36
READING: Genesis
22:1 – 14
I had the timing all figured out when we transitioned from our second church plant to the third. We prayed like crazy to sell our house by June 30, calculating the sale would be completed in time for us to move by the start of our son’s schools in September.
But no buyer came. I fumed all through July. God, how could You fail us like this? By late July, I surrendered the timing of our move to God – dejected but yielded.
We all come to periodic crossroads in our Christian walk. Something suddenly takes center stage: something we dearly love, something we’ve assumed, or maybe something we’ve been praying for with all our might. God gives us an unmistakable choice: Will you lay this down? Will you trust even this to Me, to do with as I will? This crossroad moment always addresses an issue that, left unchecked, could poison, divert or dilute our single-hearted devotion to Christ. Whatever the details, praying the prayer of relinquishment leaves the taste of death on our tongue because, of course, it always is a kind of death.
Sometimes God removes what we surrender, and because He has kindly allowed us the dignity to choose, we find peace. But often He returns to us, in purified form, the thing we gave to Him. Our buyer showed up two weeks after my surrender.
I thought the deadline was June 30. I was wrong. God used that painful delay to teach me to trust His perfect timing, then sent us buyers whose terms gave us plenty of time to move into our new house just in time for the first day of school.
Dear Father, Help me to walk at Your pace. Amen.
I had the timing all figured out when we transitioned from our second church plant to the third. We prayed like crazy to sell our house by June 30, calculating the sale would be completed in time for us to move by the start of our son’s schools in September.
But no buyer came. I fumed all through July. God, how could You fail us like this? By late July, I surrendered the timing of our move to God – dejected but yielded.
We all come to periodic crossroads in our Christian walk. Something suddenly takes center stage: something we dearly love, something we’ve assumed, or maybe something we’ve been praying for with all our might. God gives us an unmistakable choice: Will you lay this down? Will you trust even this to Me, to do with as I will? This crossroad moment always addresses an issue that, left unchecked, could poison, divert or dilute our single-hearted devotion to Christ. Whatever the details, praying the prayer of relinquishment leaves the taste of death on our tongue because, of course, it always is a kind of death.
Sometimes God removes what we surrender, and because He has kindly allowed us the dignity to choose, we find peace. But often He returns to us, in purified form, the thing we gave to Him. Our buyer showed up two weeks after my surrender.
I thought the deadline was June 30. I was wrong. God used that painful delay to teach me to trust His perfect timing, then sent us buyers whose terms gave us plenty of time to move into our new house just in time for the first day of school.
Dear Father, Help me to walk at Your pace. Amen.
Written for church planters, this is really for all of us who are trying to follow Christ. Relinquish means to voluntarily cease to keep or claim; give up. We cease claiming our "rights," our timing, our outcomes, and give everything up to Jesus. Is there anything you need to relinquish to Him? Putting everything in His hands in always best, because He knows best and has the best planned. Really, because He is the best.
By the way, I brought Dionne home today. We have lots of challenges ahead, but we're trying to relinquish each of them to our Savior.
