Giving Up

If you could compare my life today to that of my late 20's, you wouldn't recognize me.

Some of you have watched the transformation in my life and can heartily agree that change is good.  Others see my life becoming something a little on the "fanatic" side and don't get this whole "Jesus thing" that is going on.  Yet others just wish I would go back to who I was and camp there for the rest of my days.

Yet, there is this amazing freedom that comes from dying for Christ that is not really completely explainable unless you are walking or have walked the path.  And, I, for one, don't want to stray off that path and go back to the girl I was for all the tea in China.

To the outside world, this walk sometimes looks like shackles.  It looks like sucking the fun out of life.  It looks like legalistic rule-making designed to keep the man down.

I know, because I have been on the outside looking in. 

And when I was on the outside, I didn't understand what I was seeing.  I didn't understand the peace that accompanied giving up myself for Christ.  I didn't comprehend how having to change could be good.  I didn't know that sacrificing certain long-held beliefs to make room for more complex, difficult to explain truths would change me from the inside out.

But, it has and it continues to change me day-by-day.

Each time I participate in another study of the Bible or attend another Sunday School class or discuss politics with someone, my ideas are gradually becoming more Christlike.  I'm shifting away from what the world calls good to what Christ says is right.  I'm centering myself on the rock who was, and is, and is to come.

And the freedom in that shift, ya'll?  Indescribable.  Right.  Holy.  Amazing.

As the world continues to move toward self, I am moving away from it.

As the world continues to create warfare, I am moving toward peace.

As the world continues marching toward sin, I am marching toward victory over sin.

And there is no place I'd rather be than in this moment, at this time, searching for my Savior.

Won't you join me?