A Prayer of Submission & Hope

Congrats to Erin Augenblick Shannon (FUMC-K), hubby Brandon, kids Cade & Chloe and Grandma Jill on the arrival of Carter Willis Shannon yesterday morning.  He was a whopping 10 lbs, 7 oz.  No truth to the rumor that the Univ. of Michigan already offered him a football scholarship!


When Moses asked God who he should say sent him to save the people of Abraham, God responded tell them "I AM" sent you.  Yahweh is the "I AM," the God who was and is and is to come; the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  I am none of those things, and neither are you.  We are but tiny parts of God's plan, like so many before us.  When John the Baptist was asked if he was the promised Messiah, he replied, "I am NOT...but there is one who will come and reveal everything God has promised."  We, like Moses and John and Peter and so many other giants of our faith, are NOT.  But we know the great "I AM."  As you go through your day, be WIDE OPEN to the fact that God is God...and you are NOT.  Open your hearts that God might use you so His will can be accomplished on this earth.  Submit yourself so that Jesus might have His way with you and that you might quit trying to have your way with Him.  Only then can His light shine its brightest.  Only then can Jesus truly be the hope of the world.  I hope you will join me in this prayer:

Loving God, today I turn my life over to You.  My skills, my failures, my sin and my joys all belong to You.  I recognize that my life is not about me, but it is all about You.  I realize that I sometimes like to play god, but that I am NOT..You ARE!  Help me to understand that Jesus did not die on the cross so I could accomplish some political agenda or achieve some lofty position on this earth.  Jesus died for my sins, because I am a sinner.  Jesus gives me grace so that I might offer love and forgiveness to others, especially to the "least of these brothers of mine" who are in need, and to the lost who think themselves to be beyond His grace.  In the words of King David, himself a sinner of great magnitude, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit with in me, so that I might serve You."  Use me, and I will give you the glory.  Remind me daily that I am NOT...but I know I AM, and that together we can offer hope to a hurting world.


In the name of the great I AM,