All I Have

I recently heard a not so new song from Tenth Avenue North called All I Have. I’m going to be honest with you for a minute. When I started my missionary journey, I just knew God was teasing me. I mean really. How could I ever be a missionary when my passions and talents don’t really match up with most missionaries I know? (Obviously God wasn’t kidding) I learned a lot about giving too. I mean I was asking other people to give to help support my ministry right? But often, whenever I think about giving to God, I limit those actions to include just money. Tithing, donating, etc. Yes God wants us to financially give. But he also wants us to give ourselves. As in everything we have. Everything we are. Including our talents and passions and desires and dreams.

I never thought God could use me as a missionary. But looking back, all the reasons I thought I could never be a missionary are now ways that God is using me to serve as a missionary. You see I thought I had my life in order for God. I even saved some time for God and planned my life out for Him. But God didn’t just want my money. He wanted what I thought was a perfect life. A perfect dream. A perfect goal. But after giving my life, my dreams, my goals to Him, I realize that they were like my computer.

My computer is white. It is pretty old so before I left for Albania, I went and had it checked out just to make sure everything was working to help ensure that it will survive two years overseas (since it is already showing its age). So I dropped it off and later when I picked it up, it was white. I mean it looked like it was white before. But seeing it after they cleaned it off, I realized it wasn’t really white before.

That’s how my dreams and goals in life were. They looked white to me but after giving them to God, he changed them, tweaked them and cleaned them up so that they were really white. Not my fake dirtied up version of white. He made them so much better. I mean, I thought I had done a great job with them but it was nothing compared to what God did with them. And I’m crazy for ever thinking I could actually help God out by doing His job rather than letting Him use me for His purpose.

Give yourself to God. Give your actions, your talents, your dreams. Give everything to God.

Tenth Avenue North puts what I’m trying to say so much better:

There’s nothing I can call my own cause all I have is yours, O Lord.
Yes all I have is yours.

All I have is what you give me and what you give me is more than I need.
So open my hands to give back freely the same way you’ve given to me.

All I have is what you give me and what you give me is more than I need.
So I open my hands to give back freely the same way you’ve given to me.
Help me see that all I have is yours.

With everything I have: time, money, passions, ambitions, etc, all I want is to do is give as freely as the Lord has given me.

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