Allowing Him

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (Romans 12:2a, NLT).

What does it mean to be transformed, Lord?  I long to be changed. But so often I am not willing to surrender what needs to be changed in my life.  I hold on to its bondage unable to reach for freedom. What does it really mean to lay all of my life down?  To let go of all of myself?  To seek your desires instead of my own?  I need to change my attitude—my outlook—the way I think.  I need to allow you, Holy Spirit, access to my deepest feeling, emotion, and those deep places I have always held back from you. What I try to hide will never be hidden. What I try to change in my life in my own way and on my own strength, will never be changed. You transform me when I allow it. I determine to change the way that I think about all that I face—to see each problem or person as a challenge to refine my life and not as one to defeat it. You raise me up to walk above life’s circumstances—when I allow it. You call me out into the depths of the unknown to experience greater faith. You call me out so that I must rely totally on you because I have no strength of my own. You stretch me beyond myself. It may seem my breaking point, but it proves not to be because you are holding me. You wait for that moment when I have released all that you know needs to be released. You wait for that moment when my own way and my own strength proves not to be enough.  You wait with your perfect love for what I have feared in so many ways—giving up all rights to myself.

I can’t strengthen. I can’t change. I can’t fix. All I can be is yours. I let go. I breathe your promise. I breathe your peace. It is in the release of all of myself on your altar that I melt into your presence. I am clay just waiting to be molded. I cry out for your hand upon my life. I yearn to be made new in the spirit of my mind. I am ready, Lord, for those deep places which I have always held back to now belong totally to you. You own them. You own me. I have nothing to prove. I have no point to make. I rest in your grace that is sufficient. You hold me in your perfect peace because my mind has settled upon you. I am never alone in each thing that I need to give you. You are with me to strengthen and encourage. If I allow, you take into yourself my heart and mind. And you give what I can never give myself—the greatest peace for which there is no explanation. It just is because you just are. 

   Lynn Hampton Lacher