06 February 2014

Our Inside Voice: Day 3

The only place we can find the True God is by sailing the sea of submission.

It is the action word behind every story, every command, every reality of the bible, and to apply its content to our lives today means:
Submitting our inside voice to God, giving him free reign over everything that governs our outside voice.
Our inside voice decides how to pursue the American dream. We set sail in the sea of our own freedom. If we want the real God in the picture, a second step is required. We ask God to take over that very freedom that is ours and do with it as He pleases. Then we set sail in his sea of freedom.

He makes our voyage possible by fitting our freedom into his. Our American Dream is revamped by God's vision and plan and purpose for our lives. Our freedom becomes his ship to command--other countries can't offer him that.

Dr. Roller (see Feb 4th post) struggled with his inside voice that kept reminding him that his mom, from her home in Texas, had been swindled by two stranger missionaries--her life savings gone in an instant, supposedly used for a mission in Mexico. Only after his sons grew up and became, of all things, missionaries, did he let go of his frustration and resentment, submitting his inside voice to God.

John 4 describes what God is looking for as we seek to fit our freedom into what he wants:
It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people God is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, out of adoration.
Adoration required. Hard to come by if we stay in our sea of freedom, reacting to our circumstances without the bigger and true sea that God wants to sail with us. The pursuit of truth is finding out and acknowledging that we, indeed, are better off if we submit our inside voice to God.

Sometimes it is a long voyage to understand how God takes our freedom, our way of doing and seeing things, and transforms it into something bigger and better, always with a higher destination in mind.

How do we keep from jumping ship? What did Dr. Roller discover by staying the course of submission?

Tomorrow: God is the God of outcomes.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.

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