Let's do it your way….

I had all the world told me I needed to be happy.  A boyfriend, a house, a nice job that paid very well, a new car, etc., etc.  But I still found myself thinking, “Is this all there is?”  Life seemed awfully empty.

I had accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior in 1983 as a senior in high school but soon after entering college the pull of the world and Satan became stronger than I was able to resist.  Slowly I began to forget that salvation experience and reenter my worldly environment. 
I'm so glad HE never gave up on me and that 10 years later He had allowed me to see how empty life was without Him.  There are days I still am reminded how ineffective my ways are and I say again,  “My way's not working Lord.  Can we try yours?”

IN HIM,
Julie
(Devotional included below)

“Lord, there are two ways we can do this, yours and mine. Mine is not working. Let's do it your way.”

Someone sent me this quote as part of a pretty spectacular
near-death, out-of-body experience that involved a heart attack and
quadruple bypass surgery, but I don't believe you have to be facing all
that to understand such a statement. In fact, I think this is a pretty
good way to think about going through every day of our lives: “Lord,
there are two ways we can do this, yours and mine. Mine is not working.
Let's do it your way.”

That is one of the notable things about Jesus, especially as
recorded in the Gospel of John, that he always loved doing the will of
his Father. He said that he and his Father were one, and he never did
anything that his Father didn't initiate. God and he worked together
like hand in glove.

It's not quite so with us. In our finest moments, maybe, when we are
relying totally on the Spirit of God, but we have a sin nature to deal
with that Jesus didn't have. We're going to pretty much have to be
saying this every moment of our lives: “Lord, there are two ways we can
do this, yours and mine. Mine is not working. Let's do it your way.”

It is comforting to know that Jesus, in spite of his love for doing
his Father's will, struggled with it when facing his own bitter end. He
struggled so hard that blood was forced out of his body as
perspiration. The Bible teaches that the sin of the world was laid on
him on the cross, but there is reason to believe some portion of that
identity with sin began in the garden the night before his trial when
he prayed a prayer that could have just as easily been translated,
“Lord, there are two ways we can do this, yours and mine. Mine is not
going to work. Let's do it your way.”

It's the way we first come to Christ, it's the way we learn to walk
in his purposes for our lives, and it's the way Christ purchased our
salvation through his death on the cross. In fact, it pretty much sums
up the Christian life in a nutshell: “Lord, there are two ways we can
do this, yours and mine. Mine is not working. Let's do it your way.”

When you do it his way, even the end is doable.