GIVE UP by David Giles

Note: Today's blog is written by my youngest son, David Giles.

God gave me the word “Give up” recently. It was my word of the year, but I didn’t understand it at first.  I asked God what it meant and I told him I would wait a few days to make sure it was really from Him.

 

Two days later, I had a dream. I was running away from something, and I knew I couldn’t make it, so I gave up. I awoke and I felt like God told me, “You need to know when to give up, and when to continue.”

 

I thought about that, and about what else the phrase, “Give up” could mean. Some quotes came to my mind “Better to do right than to be right” and “If you love something enough, let it go. And if it comes back, it was meant to be.”

 

I had my dream on a Saturday night, so when I woke up, it was a Sunday and our house church family was meeting in our home. The first thing that someone shared tied into my word from God: “He who seeks his life will lose it” (Luke 17:33)

I had already planned to share this with the church, but after hearing this I had no doubt that this was from God.

After sharing this, a few other people had words for me:

 

“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” - (Philippians 3:8)

 

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” - (Luke 12:32)

 

I think that this new word ("Give up") ties in with last year’s word which was “It’s not about you.”

 

I know that God will continue adding to these words, and make me into who he wants me to be.

 

-David Giles

February, 2014

DROWNING

I have a healthy fear of the ocean. It’s the darkness of it. The enormous depth. The multitudes of creatures that swim beneath the surface – all capable of killing you instantly.

I don’t mind the shore. In fact, I love going to the beach and walking barefoot in the sand. I love the feeling I get when I hear the ocean waves and take in the endless horizon where waves and sky blur into one. My soul feels refreshed on the shore. I am safe. The dangers are few.

But if I go deeper I risk pain, and death. The riptides have the power to thrust my body out to sea. The jellyfish and the urchin threaten me with their sting. The shark and the eel and the sea snake can end my life with a single bite. Even the gentle whales terrify me with their immense size and power.

One of my earliest memories is of riding on my father’s shoulders as a young boy. He was walking out into the ocean with me on his back. “Are you touching the bottom, daddy?” I asked every few steps. “Yes,” came the answer. “I’m touching the bottom.”

Eventually we were far out to sea. My mom and my grandmother were small specks on the horizon. “Are you touching the bottom, daddy?” I asked again in disbelief. “Yes, son, I’m touching the bottom.”

But then the wave came. It hit us from behind as I was looking back towards the shore at my mom. One moment I was riding on my father’s shoulders in the warm Florida sun, and the next I was swallowing salt water, tumbling over and over again in the blinding foam.

I don’t remember how long I was under. But then I felt my father’s hands grab my arm and pull me to the surface.

My father and I sputtered and coughed as we bobbed on the waves. He was holding me tighter now. Tighter than I can ever remember him holding me before. I looked into his face and saw the fear. The panic subsiding, slowly replaced by pure relief. He started to laugh as his emotions shifted. He had his son back. But in my little heart his laughter sounded like a mockery.

“You lied,” I shouted. “You said you could touch the bottom, but you lied.” Then I started to cry. He pulled me closer and tried to comfort me, but if I could have I would have swum away from him in my anger.

Maybe that’s part of why I fear the ocean? At a young age I tasted firsthand how unpredictable it could be and how quickly it could snatch you from blissful serenity and thrust you into an unexpected encounter with mortality.

Last night I had a dream about the ocean. It threatened to swallow me alive. I felt that same taste of real fear just before I woke up. Then I lay there in the darkness and heard the voice of God in my ear. “I’m calling you into the depths,” He said. I knew that there was danger, and suffering, and pain, and even death beneath those dark waves. “This is not a metaphor. This is not a spiritualization. The pain and the suffering and the death are real.”

For nearly half an hour I lay there and considered these words. I admitted my fear. I confessed my preference for the shoreline, for the sand beneath my feet. I kept hearing the voice of God urging me to follow Him deeper into the dark depths.

The danger is real. The suffering is real. The pain will be real. The death will be real.

“Follow me,” came the voice again.

I got up from my bed and wandered into the den. I dropped to my knees and kept listening. How could I agree to this? How could I refuse? My decision to follow Christ was made a long time ago, but now it was being challenged again.

What if my cross was really about dying? What if following Jesus actually meant letting go of everything; my wife, my sons, my safety, my own breath? What then? What now?

I can tell you that my response was not immediate. I can tell you that the answer wasn’t automatic. My one request was for my sons. I wanted to know that they would continue to walk with Jesus after I was gone. I couldn’t ask the same for my wife, because I didn’t know if my decision was something we might experience together or not. But if she remained behind, my prayer was that she would be comforted.

It is God’s mercy that I do not know exactly what I am saying yes to. If I knew exactly then there is a very good chance that I would never agree to following Him that far. All I asked was that Jesus would go with me and that He would meet me in person when the ocean sucked that last lungful of air from my body.

This time I know that my Father has me in His grip. I know He will never let me go. I know that He can be trusted to carry me all the way home, safe at last to that other shore.

One last breath…

-kg

Your Cross And Mine

In all things and in all ways, Jesus is our example, teacher and master. We are his disciples, followers and friends.

It troubles me that often we make the Gospel about His cross and not ours.

I think that what Jesus did for us on the cross was incredible. It was the single most heroic and astounding act ever committed by anyone in the known universe. Mostly because the person committing this ultimate act of humility and sacrifice was God Himself. He certainly didn’t have to go through this. No one forced Him to do it. He simply could’ve wiped out all of mankind and started over with a new group of humans rather than endure the shame and the agony of the cross. Better yet, He could’ve just avoided all of this by not creating anything at all.

But, for whatever reason, God did create everything. He did know that it would cost Him everything. He did realize that this creation would require Him to leave His throne in glory, step down from the eternal praise of the angels and the twenty-four elders, and take on the form of a servant. Even the form of a baby, in a small stable, surrounded by smelly shepherds and barnyard animals.

Worse still, He realized that this creation would compel Him to first suffer unbelievable rejection, humiliation, physical torture, pain, separation from the Father, and even physical death.

Would you have said, “Let there be light” if you knew it would cost you all of this?

Yes, the cross of Jesus is miraculous and awe-inspiring. We don’t talk about it or meditate on it enough. It is the scandal of the universe that the perfect, pure, Holy One became smeared with the filth of sin and shame...our filth...our shame.

But we forget that Jesus offered us a cross of our own. Before he took up his cross, he called his disciples to take up their own cross and follow him.

“Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” – Luke 9:23

A.W. Tozer once said, "Among the plastic saints of our times, Jesus has to do all the dying, and all we want to hear is another sermon about his dying."

We are also called to die along with Jesus. His death was for our salvation, but our death is also necessary to the process. We must surrender our lives in exchange for the new life that Jesus died to give to us.

Jesus also tells us, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” (John 12:24-26)

Somehow, in my walk with Jesus, I have forgotten to carry my own cross. Somehow, I have neglected to receive the words of my teacher, my master and my friend when He tells me that “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27)

What is left for me is repentance, and a search for the cross which He has set aside for me to carry.

Jesus has left me with an example of what love is. He has called me to follow where he has already traveled. Our attitude should be the same as that of Jesus, as he humbled himself, we are to humble ourselves, as he emptied himself, we are to empty ourselves, as he took on the form of a servant, we are to take on the form of this same servant.

The amazing thing about the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus came and died to preach and proclaim is that “the Kingdom of God is near you” (Luke 10:9). This means that we don’t have to strive and dance around to get the Kingdom to arrive or to make it go. It’s here. Right now. Jesus announced it. He invites us into the Kingdom right now. Today.

What we often miss is that, the pathway into this Kingdom is through humility, servant hood and taking up our cross to declare Jesus as our Lord and our King.

Jesus declared the Kingdom was near to us. He demonstrated that it was true. He modeled for us how to enter the Kingdom and enjoy the Kingdom kind of life.

We’re left with little mystery then, as to where the Kingdom is and how to enter it. What we’re challenged with is the cost of this great treasure. It costs us everything, and yet, in comparison, it costs us nothing at all.

“I died on the cross with Christ. And my present life is not that of the old "I", but the living Christ within me. The bodily life I now live I live believing in the Son of God who loved me and sacrificed himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)

We’d love for there to be “another way” into the Kingdom, wouldn’t we? Even Jesus, when faced with his own cross, prayed and asked if there was another way, yet he concluded by saying, “Nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours” and he accepted this call to surrender unto death.

Our temptation is no different. The lie of the enemy is that there is “another way” to partake of the Kingdom and to follow Jesus besides the cross. We cannot allow ourselves to think that following Jesus is possible without dieing to ourselves daily and allowing Jesus to be our Lord and King.

"The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self--all your wishes and precautions--to Christ.” (C.S. Lewis, “Counting The Cost”)

The cross of Jesus is a stunning and breathtaking act of love and sacrifice by God Himself for people like you and me, and the cross He asks us to carry is our declaration of love and gratitude to Him for this amazing sacrifice.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” - (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Cost Of Discipleship”)


*From the book, "NOBODY FOLLOWS JESUS (SO WHY SHOULD YOU?)" available as a free, downloadable PDF at http://www.KeithGiles.com

-kg