Turning Myself In

The hands that kept pushing the sacrifice back on the alter, kept reaching for the sacrifice that would roll off and run away--these hands are put on the alter, for that is the reasonable sacrifice of praise.  In offering myself as worship, I'm not allowed to hold anything back.

Even the part of me that wants to be the sheriff in these here parts, that wants to round up the gangs of insolent rebels and bring them home.  You are taking the shiny badge away from me and putting it on the alter along with the rebels.  I'm not allowed to hold anything back.

Grafted in to a Vine that wants to completely take me over, I find that I have nothing to give any more. I've been hollowed out, and that's the way You want me.  You want me yielded to a story that I can only sit and listen to, and never take up the pen to write it the way I think it should go.  I'm only allowed to laugh, love, watch, wonder, cry, and feel it so deeply...being written into the story, I bring my very self and hold nothing back.

It feels like I should be scraping together the rags and bits of dust, trying to arrange them in attractive ways to adorn the alter and maybe keep myself on it.  But that's not what you want.  You want me standing there, all of me, standing in the rags and ruins of my obedience, just looking up and waiting, watching for what You will do next.  I'm not holding anything back.

Into my insolent pride, my stubborn, stiff-necked sense of responsibility, into this terrain of contrived sacrifice You come.  You come bringing Your refining fire that melts and softens and robs all of my dignity.  You come relentlessly, Your voice blazing in love as You call me to come and die.  You come to consume it all--not just the rotten crust of my flesh, but the more noble parts of me that just want to be good enough.  You aren't impressed with my feeble, whitewashed flesh.  You want to burn it and replace it with Your mighty, awesome righteousness--a righteousness meant to swallow me up.  You are coming to wage war on the hands that tried to burn the sacrifice on their own.  You aren't holding anything back.