emptied

So over the last year or so, I've been doing a lot of cool things for God. He's surrounded me with a lot of precious people, and I've been stretched in so many ways as I tried to learn to love them more deeply. I've poured myself out until there was nothing left. I've given all that I had, and still, I failed in so many ways. It wasn't enough; I didn't have enough to give. And this is the problem.

My intentions were good and my motives pure. My longing was to be a light, to bring them closer to Him, to show them unconditional love and compassion. I was thrilled with the chance to teach, to equip, to be a big sister to many, and simply a friend to others. All great things, yes. But the more I did them, the heavier the burden became.

While I was doing so many things for Him, I wasn't doing them with Him; I wasn't living by His strength, His wisdom, or His love, but rather, by my own, which is incredibly insufficient for all the passions inside of me. A few years ago, He was my source of all those things. At that time, the life I knew fell apart before my eyes and the ground was taken from beneath me. I knew without doubt that I had nothing left. There was nothing left in me to fix myself, to repair things, to bring any kind of happiness, to achieve things that mattered, or even to start over. I had to hand everything over to Him because, for the first time, I realized that He was all I really had; He was my only hope for feeling alive, for feeling that my life had any purpose, for becomming anything. Everything I had was insufficient. When I gave all I had, when I gave my best, it sucked. I could produce nothing worthwhile on my own, even with my best intentions and all my gifts in full swing, still, the fruit was worthless. The best I could give just created a mess. I finally discovered my desperation for Him to make me more than what I was, for I was nothing. For the first time in my life, I sought not simply to know about Him, but finally, I longed to know Him deeply, to be immersed in Him, to give Him absolutely all of me and let Him do whatever He wanted, to let go of myself completely (or as much as my selfish, stubborn nature would allow).

It was an incredible thing. All that nonsense about your joy being full, about Him pouring out of you...it was real! Not as a result of trying to become something or do something for Him, but simply as a result of chasing after Him and longing to be in His presence, I became so full. I was bubbling over and pouring into the people around me. For the first time, I had the ability to love unselfishly because He was filling me up and giving me more love than I could ever need. I had wisdom that certainly didn't come from me. And the smile...even in the middle of craziness, I had a hard time containing the joy. At moments when circumstances or individuals tore into me, still I saw Him teaching me; I felt Him wrapping His arms around me; I watched as He stretched and molded me. Even in those times, I was thankful. I could see Him moving, and it made me excited. This was what He had created me for: to know Him, to be used by Him. I was full, I was alive, my life mattered and I was able to love people in a way that changed them.

But somewhere along the way, I started carrying things in my own hands again. Life got busy, people around me had needs that blew my mind. As the burden grew, I found less time to seek His face. I wasn't seeking the Source of all that I needed; I wasn't being filled by Him, and thus, I became more and more empty, having less and less of myself to give. (In reality, there wasn't much of myself to give in the first place; what spilled out of me was all that He filled me with.)

I watched myself being emptied and felt helpless to stop it. I was terrified to let go of all I was holding. What if He didn't pick up the slack? What if He let these people that needed so much fall? What if they were broken? What if He didn't pick up the pieces? What if they lost hope? And so the weight grew heavier and the burden greater...along with the distance between me and my Source of all that I so desperately needed. My desire to give it all to Him again also grew, but how? I couldn't figure it out.

I think I knew this all along, but what it really came down to is that I didn't trust Him. I didn't trust how He would take care of people, how He would love and nurture them. I didn't trust His purposes or how He would go about them. As a result, I was trying to be in control of so many things that I had absolutely no control of. And all the while, I was losing sight of His perfect will. My vision of Him became so clouded. But the desire to give it back was still there.

A couple weeks ago, my longing to see Him again was compounded as I realized how much I wanted to trust Him again. Once again, I looked at what I had created, what I had accomplished when I gave everything I had in me. I held it up to what He had accomplished when He had everything in me. What I had was nothing. What I had was destroying me and hurting those around me...even as I gave all that I had and wanted so desperately to make a difference for Him. I needed to place at His feet what little I had left and allow Him to pick it up, to mold it, to rearrange it, to do as He would with it. I couldn't carry it any longer - this I had known for awhile. But I was to the point where I realized I didn't want to carry it any longer. I didn't want what I could produce; I only wanted what He could produce in and through me. Finally, a chance to see His face clearly again.

The last few weeks have been interesting as I learn to seek Him again. It's been awesome to walk with Him, to talk with Him, although sometimes a little awkward, like a friend you haven't seen for awhile. But He has shown me some amazing things. After trying for so long to see all the mess inside of me, in a day, He began to make the picture clearer. I began to understand things that had baffled me for some time. And as He built up my courage to let go, He encouraged me as He began to use me. Me! All the mess that I am...He wants to use me! That still baffles me. But that is the God that I serve, the God that I want to know and love deeply again.

And so the journey continues... I don't want to ask where is God in it all; I want God to be all. It's amazing when He is. I want to be emptied, not because I'm trying to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders and have nothing left, but because I'm laying it all in His hands everyday. I want to be emptied of myself, I want to be out of the way, so that He can fill me up, so that I may truly be full. I pray that we would all learn to trust Him and lay it all in His hands so we would know His fullness and never truly be empty.