Open Hands

Rock music blaring, stage lights gleaming and singers belting out their hearts to the most popular "Christian worship" music. (Since when did the words "Christian" and "worship" become adjectives, by the way?) A group of teenage girls are whispering and laughing behind me and my boyfriend is standing next to me. It is all I can do to shut my eyes for a moment and try to take my focus off the million things my culture screams at me to indulge in.

"Lord, I love you so much. It is my desire to give you every bit of me. My heart, my hopes for my future, my thoughts, my everyday living. If there is anything in my life, God, ANYTHING that doesn't bring me closer to You or help me share Your love and truth with others, I don't want it. I surrender it...."

And then the two sentences that began a life journey.

"... And... God... if there's anything that I won't willingly surrender that pulls me away from You and your purpose for me,..... take it from Me Yourself. If my fists are holding onto it tightly, Lord, pry them open and take it from me!... Even if it hurts, God."

I knew the weight of that prayer and I meant every syllable of it as a 16 year old standing in the middle of my youth group that night.

I meant it because I had the incredible honor being exposed to the Truth as a young woman. It was deeply ingrained in me that I have a God who created me and is madly in love with me. A God who saw that I had no hope on my own for a life of freedom and purpose and so He made a way for it to be a reality. I knew with every fiber of who I was that making a choice to love this God back and allow Him to lead my life would be the very best decision I would ever make in my entire life. In the most simplistic way, I reasoned that the God who made everything obviously knows the best way for His creations to live... so why wouldn't I allow Him to guide my steps and be in control?

The other morning I was in a similar setting, minus the hundreds of hormonal teenagers and rockstar singers. None of my friends from that time of my life were with me and neither was my family. I was sitting Indian- style on the floor in the back of a room here in Maui talking to the Lord as a couple of people led us into a time of worship through an acoustic guitar and a D'jembe. They began singing an incredible song by Misty Edwards titled "You Won't Relent".



You won't relent
Until You have it all
My heart is Yours

I'll set You as a seal upon my heart
As a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love

Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are one

All consuming fire
You're my one desire
Living flame of love
Come baptize us, come baptize us

As I shut my eyes and listened to the lyrics, my mind was brought back to that day standing in my youth group in Tampa, FL. I could see my 16 year old heart crying out that prayer for the first time. I was then flash-forwarded to the day I was 18 years old in New York City on top of a roof. God and I talked there in specific regards to my relationship with my boyfriend of 3 years who I knew wasn't chasing His heart the way I was. My Father knew that although my limited mind could have never seen it then, moving forward with this boyfriend would be violating my prayer, and my life of freedom to pursue my Creator's heart. My mind raced from situation to situation since then that I have uttered those words in one way or another.

I also was reminded of the things in my life that have hurt me in such an unexplainable way. The nights of tears and ignorant finger-pointing at God. He spoke softly to me in that moment on the floor that these painful things are often a direct result of that very prayer that I have chosen to make the theme of my life. Thankfully, God answers my prayers and has pried my fists open more than once in my life to save me from myself.

In a year or two... or five or fifty... when I find myself in yet another moment of unreluctant abandon, I will remember back to my sweet spot on the floor in Maui when I prayed that prayer once again.

"Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away. "
Song of Solomon 8:6-7