God360 Stories
Truth
Hey iv jus started the book... sent out 10 txts speakin the truth at round 2am this mornin... N yu wudnt bleeve the responses iv got! Loadsa peeps wer like "wow... thts reali relevant/helpful"... Its kwl 2 start so wel!
Posted by George, 26 April 20064 down, 116 to go...
I started the book 5 days ago. Already; I have sent e-mails to 15 different people, "speaking truth" into their lives or thanking them for the ways in which they have spoken the truth to me (many have e-mailed me back thanking me and saying what an encouragement this was for them); I have assembled an e-mail group of gracious people who have been kind enough to commit to praying for me regularly; I have made a sort of scrap book of prayers and photos of people I think God is using me to reach (which I really hope and pray gives me more discipline on this front because I suck at remembering to pray for my mates); and I have just returned from the charity shop, where I have just deposited two of my most treasued pieces of junk. If I keep going at this rate, I am in danger of having the most spiritually productive month of my life.
LOST & FOUND
I have just left two completely worthless but highly sentimental keepsakes at the Ian Rennie Hospice charity shop in Tring.
It was sad leaving them in a big pile of bin bags brimming with people's cast-off's and unwanted rubbish: I felt like explaining to the little lady behind the desk that these were better than everyone else's items because I loved them. It was equally sad knowing that they would probably be sold for 50p each. I also panicked a bit on the way home that maybe I wouldn't remember the people associated with the items as much anymore if I didn't have them around.
Having said all of that, I realised that materially, there isn't much in my life that I couldn't give up if I had to or if God asked me to. (My car & my cello would be the toughies!) For this devotion, we're supposed to be considering God "giving us away" for freewill, possibly never to "see us" again, and it got me thinking-
How much harder would this charity shop exercise be if we were being asked to give up someONE precious to us?
[Once, after a relationship had become very disfunctional, I had to do this- I had to offer a relationship with someone I cared about very much up to God and wait and see if He took it away-which I very much expected He might for my own good. He didn't, as it happens. He restored it to a healthy place-like I never thought possible.]
Anyway, if you find the charity shop stuff an easy task- it's maybe worth thinking about how you'd cope if it was a friend or family member, or your home town?
(PS. Going back to the shop on Monday to see if my keepsakes are still there & if they are I will buy them back- maybe God will restore them to me as well!)
