Monday, March 21, 2011

Sold Out!

A few years back, I wrote a song entitled "Sold Out to You". The first line reads, "Why do I do what I do. When I know you don't want me to. I make promises, full of sincerity but I fail to follow through, I always do what pleases me." Pulled from the tear stained pages of my very personal journal, it's anthem that echos on today with the chorus, "When I really just want to be everything You want me to be. Why do I fail? I just want to sell out completely to You. I want to be sold out to You."

Let me take you back a few years. Desperate to know God's will for my life, I was an eighteen year old singer, songwriter and musician traveling with my families gospel group when God laid it all out for me. He was to be first in my life and that the guy I was engaged to at the time wasn't the man he had for me. Talk about giving it to me straight! God did! His words hurt and my heart was crushed, but I already knew I had been trying to force my will for far too long. I had a choice to make and not an easy one at the time, but that Tuesday night, April 14th, at a little church in Clayton North Carolina, I decided to sell out completely to God. I chose to surrender my will, my life and my desires to be everything He created me and had called me to be.

Not quite as simple as it sounds now, the decision I made that night meant I had to make a lot of changes in my life. Was it worth it? DEFINITELY! Did it hurt? ABSOLUTELY! What did it accomplish? COUNTLESS SOULS COMING TO CHRIST AND SO MUCH MORE! I can't begin to count the benefits of that one conscious decision.

Now let me carry you to 2005, when I actually wrote "Sold Out to You". Once again, I found myself in a dark hour. See this choice of following Christ is a daily choice. There's a struggle, a battle, a warfare we're in with our flesh and the enemy of our soul. God was showing me more of His plans for my life and the dreams and visions felt impossible, unattainable, always just out of reach and I felt so inadequate. Sitting at a piano, in a room all alone, I prayed that verse and chorus, you just read, over and over until I realized it flowed with the music I was playing. Then I decided to begin writing it down. The second verse says, "Why do I feel the way I feel, so confused and condemned. In You there's liberty, God, I surrender all of me... just to be sold out to You".  By the time I got to what we'd call the bridge of the song, I like to refer to it as the climax, because it was like the dam broke and the tears were gushing out. I was wailing before the Lord. "Oh I'm tired of running to hide from the storms of this life. I want to be free, free to be, who I am in your eyes. So now I'm giving you my life."

God's plans for our lives is perfect. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5) What powerful words God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah, yet we too can take these words to heart. God knew us for he formed us in our mother's womb. He called and set us apart for His perfect plan. Nothing we do or face catches Him off guard or surprises Him, our poor choices or the choices made for us by others. His desires for our life does not change with what we do or don't do, He loves and desires us all to be like Him, with Him and to live for Him.

But before we can fully walk in His perfect plan, we must make that conscious decision to sell out completely to Him. To surrender our will, our control and our desires and allow Him to have full control of our outcome. He's trustworthy! He's our creator so of course He knows better!


Perhaps you're in that hour of decision. You want to be everything God created you to be. You're struggling within yourself to make the right choice, knowing it'll cost you everything. His plan is perfect! Nothing you give up was really ever yours to start with, but was a diversion, a temptation to move off your destined course. God has a plan for your life and as your creator, only He knows where He's designed you to be, who He's designed you to be and for what purpose. Let Him lead! Follow Him and those dreams and visions He's given you, that passion you feel for that calling can and will be realized by His power and might... just trust Him! Because before you can step out, you've got to sell out and believe me, He's worth it!

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