Day 10: The
Heart of Worship
My
insight in this chapter is that trusting is like an English lesson in tenses.
You know, our regrets (past), our problems (present), and our ambitions
(future) we should give all to God believing that He is working (present
progressive) continuously to sort it all out for us. But before God can do His
job, we must surrender it all to Him. And this TRUST is the heart of worship.
Nevertheless,
Warren stresses that this surrender must never just be a one-time event. From
the moment of surrender, there is the
practice of surrender, which is
moment-by-moment and lifelong. The challenge for us, therefore, is to make this
surrender a daily habit as my
favorite apostle, St. Paul, said: “I die
(to Christ) daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).
Indeed,
our decision to totally surrender to God will be tested. It is an unpopular,
inconvenient, even seemingly idiotic path. Friends, even our families might
rail against our utopian dreams as if we thought of them while we were on acid.
In fact, we may even feel that we are going against our true selves. And yes,
we are. We have changed and it will feel uncanny remembering our former selves
would never have thought so.
I
am going to confess something. A few months after I became a regular attendee
at Feast Manila, I made a covenant with God. I told Him I wanted to serve Him
more actively, that is in ministry and evangelization. But I told Him my
problem was I also needed to provide for my family comfortably. At that time I
was reviewing for the Licensure Examinations for Teachers or the LET (and later
the Board Examinations for Real Estate Brokers). So I asked God that He provide
for my material needs, and I will serve Him.
The
blessings came pouring. I passed the LET and placed 9th national.
And then six months later, I took the Real Estate Brokers Examinations, passed it also, and again placed -- this time Top
10. So now I can broker real estate and/or teach. I cannot, in my wildest
dreams, could ever have imagined that I would be achieving this much in my 40s.
It is as if God was helping me make up for all my failures in the past and that
now He is giving me a present filled with opportunities towards a more glorious
future. And it all started with that moment when I surrendered my life to Him
in a covenant. So now I am obligated to honor my part of the promise: I am
consecrating my life for His glory (thus, my decision to join Radical 4 for
starters) even as I endeavor to create righteous wealth so that I can bless my
family and the world.
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