“Oh God, exhaust me for You, for Your Glory until there is nothing left!”
That was the cry and prayer of my heart in my early formative years of life with Christ which began in September of 1997 and continued to be for many years later after He first called me to Himself and then ministry.
My role as a military spouse led me to opportunities of traveling the world with the love of my life, as well as serving in an interdenominational Bible study for women. Deep within my heart cried…
I’ll GO ANYWHERE and DO nearly ANYTHING for You Jesus!
“That I may know Him (Jesus Christ) and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death”
Philippians 1:10
As a fairly new follower, this passage profoundly struck me deeply. Now I know one of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit is that He goes before us to prepare us. Little did I know how it would be painfully fleshed out in a practical way. I wanted to know Him and please Him more than anything else! After all, Jesus saved me, spoke life into my dead soul, and redeemed me for eternity so that I would never again be condemned, but have His mercy, His acceptance, His love, and His peace for all my days on earth and into eternity. My allegiance was to HIM! Not content to simply read Phil 1:10, I remember mulling over this passage as if I could will the opportunity for me to be able to live it out – that I would take to suffering for Him and become more conformed to Him.
All the while, international travel and intermingling with various cultures sparked in me a desire for the nations to somehow, someway share with them The Gospel which` had so radically changed me. Zeal for the Lord’s work, His working in my life, and doing what He wanted consumed me. A dear missionary friend described me as driven and passionate. Looking back, those words rang true and I received them as a feather in my cap; however, there are a great many lessons to learn in zeal when one is a fairly new believer. Surely this God who saved me would honor my heart’s desire by taking this aviator hubby of mine to finish up our time in the U.S. Navy and then use his talents of flying to move to a foreign land and die on foreign soil doing foreign mission work!
This seemed like a reasonable plan, so I thought it would only be appropriate to let God know my plan. Ha! It’s embarrassing to admit this, but I know there are some other sisters out there who have done the same.
GOD saw otherwise and his long-term plan was that our family would spend 24 years in the Navy, doing God’s work on your taxpayer dollars and ours as well. We surrendered our will for the Lord’s needs, saying yes to wherever He led, to whatever duty station, and praying about orders and the Navy needs. All of this done as born again believers, sojourners here on earth, serving with a passion to be Christ’s Ambassadors, and reminders from the Captain – this is what God has called us to do. We were trained by The Father to submit to His will and go where He sent, in the form of Navy orders from BUPERS (the installation where all Navy orders are written).
Ironically, if you would have shared with me nearly 20 years after praying the prayer,
“Oh God, exhaust me for You, for Your Glory until there is nothing left”, that God was going to allow the darkest trial at what seemed to be the most vulnerable time in my life, I would not have believed you.
But He did, because He loves me so much! How do I know? Because God disciplines me. Hebrews 12:6
My Savior’s love is one that will never let me go!
He is the One who began this good work (Phil 1:6) and He is the One who split the curtain in two from top to bottom (Mark 15:38) signifying the way into God’s presence, the Holy of Holies, by the death of Jesus. In essence, He started this Covenant relationship with me – not me reaching to Him!
“We love, because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:19
