O Lord, I give my life to you.
(Psalm 25:1, NLT)

What a great verse to follow Psalm 24.  We can pause and start out the new year by taking a look at our attitude, whether or not we believe everything we have belongs to the Lord.

Even our life.

What are you doing with yours?  What am I doing with mine?

What does the Lord want us to do with it?

We often hear the story of the ambitious, industrious, poured-his-life-into-his-work man on his death bed.  As he lays there dying, does he look at all the money he made, cars he owns, houses he bought, awards he earned?  Or, does he long to have loved ones surround him?  Does he want to look back and see lives he touched, people he loved well, others he helped?

One movie this thought brings to mind is Mr. Holland’s Opus.  The life story of a man who wanted to do something great with music and, much like George in It’s a Wonderful Life, kept finding himself, through life’s circumstances, making decisions that seemed to lead him away from the dream he had.  In the end however, as both Mr. Holland and George looked back, they realized the dream they were given was far greater than any dream they ever had.

Gertrude Lang (Joanna Gleason) sums it up beautifully toward the end of the movie.
“Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr. Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. But he would be wrong, because I think that he’s achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.”

Their dream was greater because they learned to love well.

When we love others, Scripture says, we show ourselves to be a child of God and to know God (1 John 4:7)
And when we know God, we can surrender our life to Him in a way that says, “do with it what you will.”
In the end, it may not look like what we dreamt when we started but, given to Him, it can be far greater than we ever asked or imagined. (2 Corinthians 2:9 and Ephesians 3:20).

What dreams do you have?   What desires seem unfulfilled?  Where do you struggle with disappointment because of the way things have turned out?

Ask the Lord to reveal to you the ways He is doing more than you can ask or imagine in your life.  Ask Him to help you surrender the areas in your life to which you still cling.   Choose to say, as the Psalmist did, “I trust in you, my God!… I put my hope in you.”

Prayer  

Heavenly Father, “My life is in Your hands, My heart is in Your keeping, I’m never without hope, Not when my future is with You.”  (Kathy Troccoli, from her album Draw me Close)

Grace & Peace