thief.

Today at church, Jesus slapped me upside the head (again) with the whole comfortability thing.

The sermon was from Malachi where God is telling the Israelites that they have robbed Him.  That God gives all of us everything we need to show His glory to the world, but we take what He gives us and use it for our own selfish wants and desires to make us comfortable. BAM! We take stuff of Gods and keep if for ourselves to be happy.  I, tricia thacker, take Gods wonderful gift of love and mercy and store it up for my own safe keeping.  I steal from God.  I am a dirty little heathen. Yet God still wants us to return to Him.  This thought is so incredible to me.  That we abuse the gifts God gives us and He still has a desire for us to be with Him. Crazy.  Also that its not about the act that we personally do, but that the act of giving to the LORD whether through money or time, is us having bonding time with our creator.  That is what truly matters, using the tools he has given us and using them with Him.

As I was setting in church, I thought to myself how much of a thief I really am.  So many times I ask for God to help with this or that, yet He has already given me enough tools to help the world.  I have just taken His tools and used them for selfish reasons to help my life and not others.  So Jesus was telling me, tricia I have given you enough strength and love to give the world, so get up and do it and we will have a great time doing it together.

Also today I talked to Margery an elder lady that works in the SIL office about her life and work with Wycliffe.  It was amazing how encouraging her story was, that she didn't always know what she was doing, but God always had a plan.  Just the faith and trust she had in Jesus, gave me so much hope.  God has given me all that I need to survive, we may think its not enough, but it is.
Surrendering and all is wonderful, but acts of God's glory have to follow with it.