Read your Bible, Pray Everyday, and you grow, Grow, Grow.

When we walk into a dark room, we search for the light switch.

Our world is a dark room. Where can we find the Light to warm our weary and restless hearts? But on that note, the light reveals the dirt and the junk.

Do we really want the Light on?

Common and broad is the media escape. Lights down low, time ticks on. Forgetting the day, and flying off in everyone else’s other world.

But there’s an inner fight and struggle. “I want more than this,” we cry inside. Where’s the Light switch. I need to draw near to God.

The Word is opened, fatigue overwhelms. Eyes can barely stay open, the battle rages on.

Psalm 103: 

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits–

Praise is a remedy to begin to restore breath.

I want strength and hope.

So, deep cries out to deep, and the best I can do is: “Dear God, You are good.”

Baby steps, perhaps, but I want medicine for my weary soul, so I continue to read:

. . . who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

God forgives my impulsive impatience today. God forgives all my sins. And He heals all my diseases?

What about the disease of worry and fret? What about self-righteousness? What about all the wrong things I say and do?

When I turn to see that God does, in fact, forgive and forget, I wonder, am I willing to do this for others. Forgive, and forget?

To give the other side a break? To let go, to forget?

God’s Word is sweet, but bitter all at the same time.

I have a choice, to close the Book and nod off, or

do I dare request from God to search and know my heart?

Well, yes, He already does. But by me asking, I’m giving Him permission to show me the stuff I keep hiding from myself.

God’s aware of everything.

He still loves. He’s showing me things.

He waits. I read on:

. . .who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

How can God do this? He’s not like anyone we see. He is above our greatest of thoughts. He loves beyond our comprehension.

Am I willing yet, to rest in His love?

To let go of the junk He’s revealed to me?

and then to put out my hands to receive?

. . . who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

I want so much to be satisfied with good things. I need energy.

But the big question is, do I want to be renewed?

Could it be, I have to let go of all my misery? Forsake my un-forgiveness?

This invades my identity. Can I let go of that?

Now, the verse about denying myself is coming to my mind:

 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me, Luke 9:23.

Could it be that all I want can be gained through me, . . .

losing?

Can I trust Godlike that? The world says, “NO!” “You have to trust yourself. Propel yourself forward.  Get up and go!”

 God’s solutions seem backward at best? If I lose myself, will I find life and rest?

Trust God? Psalm 103 says, “Yes.”

. . . The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

The Light switch is easy to find, but hard to maneuver:

It’s Surrender.

Jesus says, “You will have trouble in this world. Trust Me.”

Turning on Light, brings a cost to ourselves. There is a battle over and over again. But . . .

God laid His life down, that we might see, He is our present help, Psalm 103 reveals, it’s all His great doing, not me:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;

the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children–

with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts . . . Psalm 103.

I gain all I desire, in surrender. I have choice. Moment by moment.

Over and over again. But now, I want Light:

“I surrender Lord.”

Repeated five times in the Bible, the Light switch is located all through the Gospels. “Where’s the Light switch?”

God answers:

“Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal” John 12:25.

“Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it” Matthew 10:39.