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Jim Elliot, one of my heroes, a missionary to an unreached people group, once prayed, "Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."
I've never met this man, never heard his voice, but I can still feel the power in those words, in that stirring prayer to the Father. God answered Jim's prayer, and continues to use his life as a milepost throughout generations.
For Jim's life to become that prayer, he had to give up everything. Literally. One day, that surrender to love included his physical life, although I bet all those who knew him would say that he was already dead to himself, wrecked by encountering Love.
Moving words are easy to craft if someone just pays a bit of attention to language and to what speech patterns have worked in the past to move people's emotions. And those words may move man, but are they moving heaven? Are the words birthed in the secret place, where communion with God transforms a person's prayers into their actual life?
The words that matter in heaven--those are the ones I want to use. And I want to take the prayers I am saying seriously, because there is power in them. In those exchanges with the Father, there is an invitation to become...
Completely His. Fully alive in Love. Laughter bubbling up, joy unspeakable, full of glory.
2 comments:
Wow... this is really awesome to think about... because sometimes it's like we walk throughout our day saying things, but are we making decisions considering eternal consequences and are the things we stay and the actions we make effecting eternity and shaking the earth?
Thank you for sharing this. My friend sent me a link to your blog- you write a lot of good things that focuses on God and what he's doing here. I write stuff similar to this :)
Thanks!
--Hannah Adkins
Hannah, thank you for your comment! I am excited to read your blog, as well. I get encouraged and inspired from reading the thoughts/experiences of others.
Wow, you are so right--so often I personally find myself not realizing how important each day really is in the scope of eternity, and how within each day, the words that we say, decisions that we make, really do hold such a huge impact.
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