Fully to Him

Why must we give ourselves fully to God? Because God has given himself fully to us. If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart no less than himself, shall we answer him with a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to posses God we must allow him to posses our soul.

These words were written by Mother Theresa and are recorded in the book, "Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light". The book received a lot of press this fall when it was released so when I saw a copy on the shelf of my local library, I picked it up. I've almost stopped reading it three times - it's challenging me in ways that I'm not really sure I want to be challenged.

Lately I've been finding in myself a longing for something deeper in my relationship with God. American Christianity is so self absorbed - so about what makes us happy and what makes our lives work. I easily fall into that trap. I want life with Christ and life lived on my own terms. I want great faith but I don't want it to mess with what I want to do in life. I want to live a life deeply connected to God as long as that doesn't interfere with my schedule too much. I want to make an impact on a community of people as long as they make me happy. Ultimately what I see, is there's a lot of me in the equation.

As I'm reading about the life of Mother Theresa, I see in her a woman who wanted nothing more than to experience God. She was willing to sacrifice everything for that - her family, her comfort, her position - everything. As I'm reading this book, I'm realizing how little sacrifice there is in my own life and I'm not even sure what that looks like in my life. How do we really give ourselves fully to God in a culture that is fixated on giving ourselves fully to our own pleasure? I don't know for sure but I suspect it's in the way I choose to live each day - either with an attitude that is self serving or with an attitude that sees everything (even the nasty drivers) as an opportunity to know God and make him known. I suspect it has something to do with dying to myself - I'm not very good at that one.

So this is my struggle right now - this is the prayer that I'm begging God to answer in my own life. I don't want to live the "average" Christian life, I want to experience the God who I can only really experience by giving myself fully to him.