Monday, May 14, 2007

Broken and Spilled out

Broken and Spilled Out

The woman with the alabaster box has always been a story that I've connected with. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I hope, no, I believe that if I lived in the day and the hour that she lived in, I would be her. I would come to Jesus with oil that cost so much and I would pour it on Him. The Bible says she broke open the box and washed the Lord's feet with her hair. How intimate-how worshipful. I think about when my hair was long I would wash it with flavoured shampoo so that at night when I would go to sleep, with my hair by my face, I would go to sleep smelling the wonderful smells of wildflowers or exotic fruit shampoo. I think about this woman who washed the smelliest, dirtiest part of Jesus' body with this fragrant perfume-how did her hair smell that evening? Did it smell to her like the picture of her life--smelly and dirty mistakes overwhelmed by the scent of His majesty?
She committed herself to the act of worship when she broke that box. The oil spilled out, never to be recaptured or contained again--it now had the purpose of serving the King of Kings. How I long to live my life this way...broken and spilled out for the purpose of serving the King. I long to never be contained again with the way that I passionately love my Saviour. Never again to be afraid to share His name or His cross. How I long to reach my breaking point to which I can never be recaptured into this box.
What will get me there?
The same thing that has gotten me to where I am now. The choice to just commit my life to Him and give Him all that He asks.
Lord, I commit my life to You. There is nothing You can't have. There is nothing that You ask for that I won't give you. There is nothing that I will withhold from the One I love with my life.
This is the prayer that I pray whenever I want to run from God. I find myself uttering it in my hardest times of worship:
"There is nothing You can't have. There is nothing that You ask for that I won't give you. There is nothing that I will withhold from the One I love with my life."
I decree this over my life as I pray because when I'm afraid of the change that His Word will bring to my life my tendency is to close down and try to hide the things that He asks for. But I don't want to hide from Him.
It's His kindness that leads us to repentance.
Be kind to me today, Lord.