I Surrender All?

So take me as You find me, all my fears and failures. Fill my life again. I give my life to follow everything I believe in. Now I surrender

So take me as You find me, all my fears & failures.  Fill my life again.  I'll give my life to follow everything I believe in.  Now I surrender.

This morning at church was the conclusion to Andy Stanley's White Flag series about Jonah.  We all know about Jonah running from God, being swallowed by the fish, & spit back out again to go, as commanded the first time, to preach to the people of Ninevah.

Before going any further, we need to understand what kind of person Jonah was.  He was a "good guy."  He was the perfect illustration of many "church people" today.  He had surrendered to the law of God...but that wasn't enough.

When Jonah arrived in Ninevah & preached to the people, they fasted, prayed, & turned their lives again.  And...this made Jonah mad.  The Ninevites were known for being very violent people & Jonah didn't think they deserved God's compassion.

Even though Jonah had surrendered his morals, his values, his life choices, to God, he hadn't surrendered to what God wanted to do with the rest of the world.

I think this was just what I needed to hear this morning.  I've always felt like I had a good grasp of God's global purpose.  I've been on every mission trip I had the opportunity to go on, both here and overseas.  But each of those trips had a specific beginning and end.  I knew who would be there with me.  I knew what I would be doing for the most part.  I knew there would be something that I could do to help the people that we were serving.

But what about now?  In looking at jobs, I limit my searches to places close to my family, states I'd want to live in, or if far away, ones with a beginning and ending date.  That's totally limiting God & running from what He may want to do through me.  I'm not saying that God is necessarily calling me to go somewhere far away from home, but how do I know if I'm not even being open to it?  I'm talking myself out of the things that God is most concerned with.  Ultimate surrender requires that I surrender to God's concerns around the world.  Andy said, "feelings of care are different from what you do with your time, talents, and treasure."  Compassion, by definition, is not just sympathy, but is also a "desire to alleviate the suffering."  We are called to engage in what God's up to.

I want to be discontent until everyone knows.