I believe that God is speaking to us continuously and that when we listen we can hear Him. Unfortunately, I'm easily distracted and prone to making too much noise. I need to be deliberately attentive and give Him the opportunity to speak into my life. 

I am never disappointed when He does, it can be painful to hear what he has to say but even the rebuking and conviction that He brings leads me closer to Him and to the person I know God wants me to become.

I recently found myself sitting with the crew and artists on Big Daddy Weave's Beautiful Offerings tour. We have a daily devotional time where we pray over every seat. We take the time to quiet ourselves in prayer and prepare our hearts for the show. I was babbling to God, listing off my prayer requests and then it happened. God spoke. This is what He said:

"Fully Committed / Fully Surrendered"

That was it and then He was silent. I asked Plumb, who was sitting close by, for a Sharpie and feverishly wrote that phrase across the palm of my hand. I asked God to explain His words over and over again prior to the show but He remained silent. 

Later that night as I stood on stage in front of a packed crowd I looked down at my hand still not knowing what God meant when He said, "Fully Committed / Fully Surrendered." Fortunately, I have learned to trust that God will give me the words to speak when I stand before men, as long as I am obedient to communicate the message with humility and honesty.

So there I was, under the spotlight, noodling on my guitar between songs, stalling and waiting for some heavenly inspiration. I decided to dive in and trust the words He had given to me. I read the phrase ("Fully Committed/Fully Surrendered:) now smeared across my palm and trusted that God would make the meaning clear. I allowed a little more room, a little more time for the Spirit of God to move. It was certainly a little awkward but I have found that God moves in the awkward spaces in between what we are busying ourselves with. 

And then it happened... God spoke and I relayed it to the room as best as I could.

God said that He is fully committed to us, every one of us, and that He has demonstrated that through the sacrificial and beautiful life, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. He remains as committed to us now as He was 2,000 years ago. There is no reason to doubt that. 

Then He asked this question which I must admit stung a little: "Are you as committed to me as I am to you?" We are good at claiming to be wildly in love with God; we talk about it, we write books and sermons about it, we even sing about our unfailing love for Him. Do our lives demonstrate that or do we betray our lips with the lives we lead?

Then God said this: "If you are fully committed to me you would be fully surrendered just as Jesus was to the will of the Father." Jesus chose to go all the way, to lay His life down for us. He chose to say "=yes to an agonizing death on the cross. Jesus fully surrendered His life so that we could live in relationship with Him. Jesus was fully surrendered. Are we?

Matthew 10:39 says this: "If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me"

What is our primary concern? Is it to give our lives away so that the goodness of God should be made known to everyone, everywhere and that in doing so we may find true life in and relationship with Jesus? I'm not so sure it is. Are we just surviving, going through the motions, saying all the right things at all the right times? Maybe we are hoping that our 21st Century religiosity will be enough to get us into Heaven without ever having to be fully committed or fully surrendered to a Gospel, which requires both. If you are one of the few who has given their lives away and found both yourself and Jesus through doing so then rejoice, I rejoice for you.

However, for the rest of us my prayer is this: "O' Magnificent God, by your incredible Holy Spirit empower us to be fully committed and fully surrendered to You. Allow us to become fully alive through the giving away of ourselves so that we can have genuine, authentic relationship with You our mighty King."

God bless you all,
Darren