"Glory to God"

"Take my life and let it be all for You and for Your glory, take my life and let it be Yours."

I'm sure a lot of you had heard Steve Fee's song "Glory to God" by now. If you haven't, you need to check it out. It's incredible.

The first time I heard this song was the Summer of 2009 at BigStuf camps where I was working as an intern. I fell in love with it and the lyrics immediately. This song has become my prayer. The last couple of times I have been to church, we have sung this song. But these last couple of weeks, God has been showing me something new, and he has used this song to get to me.

At the end of the song it says "Take my life and let it be ALL for YOU and for YOUR glory, take my life and LET IT BE YOURS."

For the longest time when I would sing this song I would be like "okay God, use me to do something great for you so I can give you glory." It was kind of like I expected for good stuff to happen to me so I could bring God glory because of it.

But these last couple of weeks God has been revealing himself to me even more. As I was singing this at church this week, God revealed a new concept to me. When I sing "take my life and let it be all for you and for your glory, take my life and let it be yours," it doesn't mean that God can only use my life for his glory when the good things are happening in my life. Yes, He does use the good things to bring Him glory, but He also uses my brokenness, sadness, heartbreak, and suffering. He uses everything for his glory. After God revealed this to me, the way my heart sings this song has changed. Instead of saying "okay God, use me to do something great for you so I can give you glory" has changed to "okay God, do what YOU want in my life so your glory can be revealed best." The incredible thing about God is that he can use fragile, imperfect, broken people for his glory. When something good happens, God wants us to glorify Him. But when we are going through a rough patch in life, we are called to glorify Him even in those moments when life doesn't make a lot of sense. It is an incredible testimony when someone can say "I was broken, sad, and hurting, but God put me pack together, gave me unspeakable joy, and healed me." From this day forward, my prayer is "God, do in me what YOU want, when YOU want it, where YOU want it." I'm choosing to give God the glory for every single thing in my life--even when I don't understand why something is happening or when I am hurting.

"TAKE MY LIFE AND LET IT BE ALL FOR YOU AND FOR YOUR GLORY."