"Lord, I give you my heart; I give you my soul; I live for you alone…"
          I have started my quiet time out every day with this song. God has been heavily placing on my heart that he wants every part of me and the words of this song have been the cry of my heart this week. The first part of that quote that God has placed on me is, "I give you my heart; I give you my soul..." God has been teaching me that giving him my heart means giving him my innermost parts of me—my thoughts, emotions, and will. C.S Lewis states in Mere Christianity, "Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'" So often I try to tell God, "Okay, I'll spend 30 minutes in quiet time today," or I think I have done my part by placing $20 in the church offering. I focus so much on "my time, my money, and my work" instead of just giving him me. I make my own plans and as long as they are "honorable to God," I assume that I am following his plan. God is teaching me that I have to give him all my plans—"innocent and wicked"—to him. I am learning to give God "my heart, my soul" by daily surrendering my innermost parts to him. In return, God is blessing me by revealing a little of his heart, love, and will to me.

God has also been convicting me of the second part of this quote: "...I live for you alone." In the past, I have tried to give him bits and pieces of my life. I was still trying to "fit in" with the world, but also have a relationship with God. C.S. Lewis later in the book states, "The almost impossible thing is to hand out your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good." We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do." The quote clearly states that how I was previously trying to live my life is not possible to do while following Christ with my whole heart. I If I am still preoccupied with my own pleasures and ambitions, I am not living for him alone. Christ does not want happiness to be my aim. My mom has always been an awesome example of this. I specifically remember her telling me, "My number one prayer for you is not that you are happy; it is that God will be first priority in your life and that whatever it takes to get you there will happen." Christ has been teaching me that a lot of times he is going to use the times when I am completely uncomfortable, and a lot of times unhappy, to bring me closer to him. I am finally beginning to realize how impossible it is to try to live for both the world and God and as I daily surrender my heart and soul to the Lord, I pray that I will truly live for him alone.
"…Every breath that I take, every moment I'm awake, Lord have your way with me."