I’ve been telling everyone that sincerely giving your life to God will transform it altogether. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that some people are taking my advice. And I love them for that! But one reader has just reminded me that it isn’t quite that simple. She said in a blog post comment:
You write “I urge you to give your life to God. And mean it! When you do that, God will give you things to do that are more wonderful than anything you can dream up yourself.” This sounds very convincing – I’d love to experience that for myself!
So what if you do give your life to God, surrender, try to be as open as possible – but things seem to get worse than they were before … ? What does that mean? I feel a little discouraged at the moment.
I realize now that the joy that began for me when I gave my life to God has made me portray the process as easier than it actually is. And I’m sorry about that. For this beautiful seeker who reminded me that giving your life to God can be complicated, and for everyone else who is thinking about giving the rest of your life to God, I should share with you what our beloved Paul Harvey might have called “the rest of the story.”
It’s important to remember that your life is not random. Each of us came into this lifetime with a spiritual lesson-plan, and our spirit guides are going to keep us focused on completing all the lessons in our plan. Since these plans vary so considerably, it is difficult to make a blanket statement, but it’s likely that most of us will be still working on completing our spiritual lessons until we are at least middle-aged. This doesn’t mean that no one younger can make a gift of his life to God; but it does mean that working hard to Ace our spiritual lessons should be first in our minds.
So, let’s suppose that you have decided sincerely to give your life to God. Why might you not be feeling the changes in your life that some others have experienced when they made their own gifts? There are so many possible reasons that I’m sure this list is not complete, but let’s look at a few of them:
- You may be afraid to trust God with your life. If you want to serve God but you are afraid of the judgmental and rigid God that is at the core of the Judeo-Christian religions, then you are likely to hedge the gift as you make it. “I’ll really try, God! I want to do it, God!” you might be thinking as you make your gift, and swallow hard. God loves you too much to let you make a gift of your life that is based in fear.
- You might still be deep in working on planned life-lessons. If your life is in the midst of crises that you planned before birth for your spiritual growth, God will not begin to use your gift until after you have handled and resolved these crises. For our sake, God puts our spiritual development first of all.
- You might misunderstand what making the gift of your life means. Giving your life to God doesn’t mean that God is going to take it over. It doesn’t make God your driver. It doesn’t even mean that you will initially recognize your perfect task from God even when it is right in front of you. As I will demonstrate below, the gift’s first effect must be an immediate difference in you.
- You might be hoping to do something big. For you to tell God that you are devoting the rest of your life to God’s service is a big gift indeed! But you must realize that what God will give you to do is going to be a tiny stitch in a great eternal tapestry. And does doing just that little bit make you joyous? Oh, yes. Indeed it does!
- You might be keeping your thumb on the scale. You want to do God’s work. But what you really want is to find a job in your home city where you can do God’s work writing computer programs for nonprofits. You want to give your life to God, but on your own terms.
Let’s look now at my situation, since it is the only one that I know well. I have friends who have made the same gift, but I respect them too much to inquire about the intimate details of their lives.
I gave my life to God one morning in April of 2009 as I was sitting in a pew of a Unity Church that I then attended. It seemed in that moment to be the only way to get as close to God as I was craving to be. I pray in gratitude affirmations, so what I prayed was, “Thank You for giving me work to do. Thank You for showing me how to do it.” I recall thinking through the words as I was saying them that first time, and then deciding that I had nailed it. I have prayed those two lines every day ever since.
I didn’t know how to give my life to God. I never had discussed it with anyone! I spent that first giddy afternoon thinking about how someone as psychic as a post might possibly be able to discern God’s will, and eventually I kind of thought, “Okay, God, now I’m Yours. Whatever you put in front of me I will think must be a sign from You.” From that day forward, I have pursued everything that felt as if it might be from God until it seemed no longer to feel right. I still live that way. Every day.
At the time, it never occurred to me that God might not accept my gift. But I realize now that giving their lives to God doesn’t work as well for everyone as it has worked for me, and as best I have been able to discern the reasons why, they were some combination of those listed above. As I think about it now, here is why it seems to have worked in my case:
- I was no longer afraid of God. I had stopped attending the Catholic Church that had a life-size, full-color plaster Jesus bleeding on a cross above the altar. I had begun to call myself an “Originalist Christian,” which meant to me that I followed just Jesus. I had begun to think through what it would mean to really, strictly live the Gospels. And the God that I was discovering beyond Christianity was one of infinite and perfect love.
- My life was newly stable, which suggests that I had finished most of my planned spiritual lessons. I was sixty-two years old. My once-rocky marriage had been solid for awhile, my children were at last well-launched, and my career
was winding down.
- I didn’t expect an immediate change in my life. In retrospect, the first event that seems to have followed my gift came four months later, when I felt prompted to offer a course in that Unity church. My course materials kept growing even after the course ended, and eventually they became The Fun of Dying.
- I had no hopes and no expectations. I cannot recall ever thinking that my giving my life to God was a big deal. It seemed to be only fair, when I thought about all that God had done for me! All I wanted for myself was a closer Walk. And the fact that every day thereafter I looked at everything that happened in my life as perhaps a call to action from God kept the Divine front and center in my mind, and kept all of God’s people foremost in my heart. It is that transformation of my life from inward and selfish into outward and loving that was my real answer from God. And it seems to have come at once!
- I think I really would have done anything. I’m not sure. But the point is that my love and trust in God were so complete by then that it never occurred to me to worry that perhaps God might want me to do something awful. My closer Walk made me know at once that God’s love for me is infinite and perfect. From that first moment, I trusted God to make me ever happier in doing my little bit of work to add one stitch to God’s perfect tapestry.
I have come to understand just in recent days that it was my primary spirit guide, Thomas, who prompted me to give my life to God. He did it because he was about to put the series of tasks in front of me that I had agreed before my birth would be the purpose of this lifetime, and he wanted me to be on the lookout for them. Had I known from the first that a world-changing experience like giving birth to Liberating Jesus was six years away, I might have been more circumspect about telling everyone that giving your life to God will be a certain ticket to joy. It has been that for me! But might it be that for you?
We all live many earth-lives. I have seen estimates from the hundreds into the thousands. We come into each lifetime with a plan that we ourselves have carefully drawn to assist us, over millennia of time, in perfecting ourselves spiritually. But a life-plan is not a rodent’s maze! We have the power to take control; we can transform our lives while we are living them. If, after reading this, you still want to give your life to God without reservation, then I urge you to tackle the five potential obstacles to God’s being able to use your life that I have listed above. Get them out of the way. Then, when you have freed the rest of your life to be useful in God’s service, begin to pray my gratitude affirmation. From then on, seek every day and in everything that happens in your life the call of God to begin your new work. Even if you didn’t come into this lifetime with a pre-planned job to do, the work of transforming the world that God has only now begun is going to have a use for your gifts! And let me hear from you. I am glad to help you find the perfect role that God is calling you to play.