More Than "This World" Has To Offer

At the encouragement of 2 staff people at Acres of Love, including the founder, Gerda, I am starting to read "A Chance to Die." (it got the fast pass into my hands even though I have a stack of about 10 Christian and South Africa books I am eager to get into!!) It is the life and legacy of Amy Carmichael, who understood true discipleship and lived it out. She felt the call to the mission field, followed God's guidance and eventually went to India and founded a refuge for orphans. I am only about 50 pages in, but already feel a weird sense of understanding of Amy's heart and faith.
On page 37 I read about how Amy had gone to this Christian convention. At the end of the night the chairman rose for the last prayer..."O Lord, we know Thou art able to keep us from falling." and Amy says that "those words found me. It was as if they were alight. And they shone for me." She sounds like a passionate, romantic....I can relate.
Her biographer writes that after the convention Amy went out for lunch. "The mutton chops they ordered were badly cooked. Mutton chops? thought Amy. What does it matter about Mutton Chops? The Lord is able to keep us from falling! To keep us from falling! This, this at last, was what she had prayed and agonized for...If mutton chops didn't matter anymore, neither did clothes...She was now, in the language of the apostle Paul, "dead to the world." To Amy, the world meant fashion, finery, luxury of any sort. She would follow Him who had no home, no earthly possessions beyond the bare minimum. She would be 'dead to the world and its applause, to all its customs, fashions, laws.' It is the measure of her commitment that she did not hesitate to relinquish all that seemed to her inimical to the true life of discipleship."
Funny, these words seemed alight for me.
I have felt this way since the beginning of my Christian walk. I have felt increasingly "dead to the world" as I have come to know Christ more and more. Before I knew Christ I was "of this world," grading myself based on the standards that others put in place. I was preoccupied with status and wealth and nice things, who strived for the good life and comfortable future, who desired security, who bought into this culture and time.
But once I came to truly know Christ, my priorities and desires changed. Since I have accepted his offer of forgiveness and cleansing and a chance to be "reborn," I see things through His eyes and not my own. Now I feel like I understand what this whole life is really about. It's not about wealth and stuff and getting ahead and worldly success or even about comfort or security. It's about love and freedom and peace. It's about being free in Christ, truly free to accept love and to share love with others. It's not about us, it's about Him. It's about getting over ourselves, getting over our pride and our ego and the idea that we are in charge. It's about surrendering and admitting that we don't have it all figured out, and that we trust that God does and that we want to live for the Creator that is finishing the good work He once started.
Lately I've had the sense that God is really trying to show me that I can claim this freedom in Him, that I don't have to submit to the standards of this world, that He is calling me to a much more meaningful life of truly loving Him and others and making a lasting difference in the lives of orphaned children in Africa. I get the feeling that God wants to me be aware that there is so much more to this life that I will have when I commit to following Him no matter where that takes me, more than I would have if I were to sit still and fearfully cling to the "stuff" and status of this world.
As I navigate through this season that God is taking me through, I pray for wisdom. Being the passionate, romantic, I want to abandon it all! I want to be like Amy Carmichael. Because of her commitment to the Lord she could no longer see enjoyment in Mutton Chops and fashion. I am beginning to have feelings like that too. Since I know of the pain and suffering that goes on in South Africa I am having trouble enjoying food and leisure and any non-necessity anymore. Things just don't look and taste and feel the same to me now. I pray that God will work this all out within me and show me where He needs me and wants me to be. I pray that I will move slowly, not get ahead of myself that I will be still and quiet enough to sense his leading and that I will just get out of the way so that He can do His thing!