Costly Sacrifice

I have always been an Old Testament girl.

So many Christians have a hard time reconciling the God of the New Testament with the God of the Old Testament, but God is God is God, and He always will be. The compassionate love that caused Him to die on the cross is plainly evident in the OT, and the wrath He will unleash on those who oppose Him is often remembered in the NT.

Personally, I have a tendency to spend more time in the OT than in the NT. Most of that time is spent in Psalms, which has really been aided by my Psalms class this past quarter, but there are far more places in the Bible that impact me than just Psalms. For example…

Have you ever had a scripture be your heart’s cry?

I could tell you three scriptures that have defined my last two seasons, and my current season. A couple of years ago, it was Peter’s words in John 6:68 – “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” No matter what I went through, that was my heart’s cry; no matter how hard, no matter how painful, no matter how long since I had last felt His presence, there was nowhere else to go, and I would cling to Him with all I was.

Last summer, it became Psalm 42:11. “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” When depression stole my life and my energy, I would speak this over myself. No matter how long it took or how hard the fight, I would hope in God and come out of depression praising Him.

This semester, however, was an interesting one. Free from depression, I jump into a new challenge: night watch. Waking up at 1 am and going to bed by 4 pm for the sake of worshiping God in the night forced me to take a good look at why I do night and day prayer.

Different schedules have different challenges.

As a student without a car, no matter what time of day my prayer room hours are, I have to find a ride. That is a constant. But with night watch, there are other things that make it hard. The schedule is rough on my body. There is very little time to spend with friends. It takes twice as much deliberate time management, because there is far less free time – some days I don’t have any!

It took me most of the semester, but I finally found the verse for this season of my life. In 2 Samuel 24:24, King David says, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” I refuse to give my life to God in a way that does not inconvenience me. I refuse to worship Him from my excess; I will worship Him with everything, and to worship with everything means to give up what I want for what He wants.

This semester has been hard, but summer has come. I pray for grace to give unto Him as well in summer as I believe I have over these last few months.