Tag Archives: surrender

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peelingThe Lemmons have been paring down, gradually peeling off the grip that ties us to any place or thing. It looks like moving may not be in our immediate future as I thought when I wrote “Paring Down the Lemmon House,” but we are still taking the cue to shrug off the material attachments that entangle us (Hebrews 12:1). Cindy has written about her “nest stuff,” from which she has begun to at least emotionally turn loose. I have waged war on my attachment to material things landing sword-blows like these:

“..whoever loves wealth is never satisfied…” (Ecclesiastes 5:10 NIV)

"You cannot serve God and wealth." (Luke 16:13 NASB)

The reality is when we move to Uganda we cannot keep what will not move, and what we try to move will not be secure (as if anything really is). The conclusion of this thinking has been surprisingly liberating. There is nothing we cannot live without, and there is nothing we must stay in one place to preserve. As we turn loose of our hold on stuff it is shocking to discover how tight a grip it actually had on us.

I just got back from a road trip during which I delivered to my siblings the prized heir-looms of my house. While I was at it, I got to enjoy several family visits that fit into the trip, and I was blessed by each one. Though delivering these gifts was something of a tearing away, I felt cleaner for the parting. Lighter even! Furthermore, I was enriched in a different way by building relationships with family.

On the return leg of my trip, I learned another lesson in material wealth and resource when I stopped at the scene of a blowout that claimed one of my tires several weeks before. It was a long shot, but I wondered if my missing hubcap might still be somewhere along the highway. I had priced a replacement at $60 but decided that good stewardship demanded I stop and spend time looking to recover it before giving up that much. I walked up and back more than a mile, all the while talking to God about His resource, my faith, and my contentment regardless of the results of this search. “It is Your resource,” I conceded, “If You want to restore it, You are entirely capable of directing my steps and guiding my glance, and I trust You to do just that.” I didn’t find the wheel cover, but I was content that I had left the ninety-nine to seek the one. I returned to the "ninety-nine," my trusty old pickup, in unmolested condition, but not entirely whole.

It turned out the mysterious noise I heard as I pulled off the highway, which I had already determined was not another blown tire, was actually an air compressor and a drive belt, the repairs of which would cost $1,100 more of God’s resources. On any other day, I might have reacted differently, but since I had just spent the better part of an hour talking to my Heavenly Father about the community nature of our property, all I could do was wonder why He would want to spend $1,100 on mechanical parts and service when He already owns the cattle and auto parts on a thousand hills. It is perhaps not for me to know.

What is promised to me is enough. God will always meet all my needs. He may not make my wheel covers match or my paint job sparkle, but He will always be there; and everything I have will always be His. Furthermore, in light of the truths that God owns everything, He has loaned me some of it, He has not delivered me from this troublesome world, yet He has overcome the world (John 16:33), I have cause for neither worry nor regret. My citizenship is of Heaven, and it is there I am building myself treasure. Material here on Earth is but dust on my feet.

Oh, yes! In the waiting room of my mechanic’s shop, just in front of a Ugandan Okoa Refuge missionary display, I did meet a retired transplant surgeon, and we spoke about his heart for service and his current project that just happens to involve a local church congregation – mine. Interesting.

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PackingTheHouseI am surprised how fast January flew by. Classes are in session, and this week has brought me four exams. I was disappointed in my failure to prepare for one, and started it more on edge than usual, but received a notification by the end of the day that I had aced it. That glory goes entirely to God!

The big developing news with the Lemmons is a recent decision to sell our house and downsize. We were looking at our finances and recognized the only way to be free of debt before we begin our adventure overseas is to release the house. This idea came roughly a week after I began to prayerfully submit to God that I was ready to surrender whatever He decided was next if He would only make it known to me. The house it is!

An online value estimator predicted the possibility that we just might be able to shake these chains free if God wills that we should do so. We are counting on the knowledge that He does want us free. We calculated the result of rolling our mortgage savings into our consumer debt, and the result (God willing) will be financial freedom in about twenty months. Now that is something to celebrate!

In the meantime, this is sort of a dress rehearsal for the paring down of material possessions that will come prior to our trans-Atlantic migration. I like to think of this move as a wide funnel rather than the eye of a needle we anticipate then. We will likely find ourselves in either a shared house or an apartment, either of which would provide us a one bedroom existence with drastically reduced living areas. God doesn’t want us dependent on material things anyway, so it’s good to loosen our grip on them. It is amazing the perspective you get on possessions when you know you will lose them in several years anyway. The “just in case” collections don’t survive. “What if I ever need one of those?” is no longer a good reason to keep something. If it doesn’t get used frequently now, chances are we won’t need it in the next seven years. It’s actually liberating!

It makes me think: weren’t we supposed to be living that way in the first place? Ready to go at a moment’s notice? Not clinging to the things of this world? If I never make it to see the red clay of Uganda again, I am still pleased to release my grip on the soil beneath me and the trappings of Earth!

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” (1 John 2:15, NIV)

“Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” (Mark 10:21, NIV)

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29, NIV)

“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:17, NIV)