When God Gives it Back to You.

At the beginning of this year God asked me to give back to him three very specific things. I've mentioned them before, but simply put they'd become idols to me. These things I had been trying to hold close to them, and make something happen with them. There's was no room for God to bless them if I was holding on so tightly to them thinking I knew better than God. 

Ahh... when I felt the Lord tell me to give them up, sacrifice and lay them down I won't lie. It hurt. I mulled over it for days thinking "God is that you, are you really telling me to let this go, give this to you?"

Once I made the choice to listen to the Lord, it was a freeing feeling. I'd let go of the things I was trying so hard to control, trying so hard to make happen in my own strength. When the reality of it is, when something is truly of the Lord only He can take it where you want it to go. You can't. It's not yours. It's His. When he's called us to something, he can bring it to fruition. We are only called to be obediant to His calling. 

When I laid those things down earlier this year, I didn't know if I'd ever feel the same way about them, or be connected to them again. It reminds me of the story in the Bible when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. 

This is a crazy story, Isaac was Abraham's son. A son he'd waited all his life to have. Literally. God has kept his promise to his wife Sarah whom everyone including her thought she was barren. Can you imagine God asking you to do something like that? God tells him to take his son up the mountain and give him as burnt offering to him (Gen. 22:2) 

At one point Isaac looks at his father and asks where the lamb is that they are going to sacrifice? Good question Isaac, all the while Abraham knows it's his son. He just tells him that the Lord will provide. They get to the top and Abraham binds his son up with the wood to offer him as the burnt offering. 

Seriously can you imagine? It makes what God asked of me seem so little. Abraham does it though. And just when he's about to lift a hand to his son, an Angel of the Lord calls out to him. He says to him, that he knows he fears the Lord because he has not with held anything from him, not even his only son. 

Then God provides a ram caught in a thicket for Abraham to offer as a sacrifice. Can you imagine what Isaac must have been thinking the whole time? But what an amazing testimony that Abraham provided to his son by being faithful to what the Lord had called him to do! 

Through out this year I have been able to see God's hand working in my life as a direct result of me giving Him the things in which he asked, giving over and sacrificing the things that I'd once made into idols. It has not always been easy, it has been rough and emotional at times. But God has done something amazing in my life this year. I have more peace now that I'm not holding so tightly to things and trying to control them on my own.

The best part of all I have seen his fruit. I have seen growth in myself in areas I know now that were held back because of my lack of faith, my lack of trust in areas of my life. Just as Abraham followed through with what God asked him to, as result God was pleased with his offering and gave it back to him. 

God has surprised me this year as result of my faithfulness and drawing near to him, He's brought back things to me, and fulfilled dreams in my heart that no on but Him knew were there. 

Most of the time we sacrifice and don't even know or expect the fruit that will come from it. All we know is that we're being faithful. His blessings flow from that.

I'm thankful and completely humbled by the things he's brought my way this year, and I know they are a direct result of my sacrifice earlier this year. 

What he's brought back and blessed me with is ten fold better than what I could have done on my own, or was trying to do. 

How has God surprised you this year? Have you laid anything down at the altar this year to him? Tell me about it below, I would love to hear your stories of how God has blessed you because of your faithfulness to Him.