Jealous God

When your calling isn't glamorous;
expectations slashed to shreds.
The life you'd dreamt of so far gone;
you were sure it was His plan.

Your desire had been to serve Him
and give your life to His cause--
as long as what He asked of you fit inside four painted walls.

Maybe something high-profile, with lots of people to see
how good and wise and talented through Christ you'd grown to be.

Or a church leader to stand in front of crowds each week;
surely God desired your good deed always be seen.

Good intentions marked your path, you really thought you knew.
But He knew you better than you knew yourself;
He wanted your whole heart and mind; He'd paid for all of you.

The price you paid was dying to self and, yes, when sin dies it stings.
But oh how much more He had hurt when He paid for you on a tree.

His love would not allow my dreams to become my idol, my god;
I am His, bought for a price; He will not share the throne.

The slippery slope

The thing that hurts the most is the failing despite trying with all your might;

the final judgement of "your best efforts fall short."

Drowning under the weight of the realization that you could spend your life striving to rid yourself of sin and still be swimming in a bottomless pit of depravity; that you knew you couldn't tread water on your own, but somehow you ended up claiming self-sufficiency again. 

It's a slippery slope to the middle of the pool, where you toil with all your might and only wear yourself out further.

Then I lifted my eyes to see the Rescuer. He was there to lift me out and set my feet on solid ground. 

He alone had swam the waters; He did the work and was victorious.  

The work of saving is His to do; ours to say "yes, I need you." 

Then the freedom of being free, to live and move and have our being. No longer striving nonstop to stay alive, we're sealed, having been bought for a price.  

The weight of sin we no longer bear, only a glorious weight to prepare.