Jerry Kindall — All for
God
Lord, what will you have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go . . . Acts 9:6
If our lives are centered in the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25
. . . I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me . . . Galatians 2:20
Many people get out their dedication like the family Bible and dust it off once a week. They carry it to church, then bring it home and leave it on the shelf until the following Sunday. Other people carry it to work where it influences their decisions and relationships on the assembly line and in the front office. Still others feel that God should direct even the use of their leisure time.
Just how far should we go with this matter of dedication?
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1)
I believe that a careful reading of the New Testament will reveal that there are no special areas of a believer's life that he can "run for himself." As a Christian,
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he has been "ransomed at a price," filled by the Holy Spirit, and is urged to offer his body as a living sacrifice.
Does it sound depressing? Does it sound as though the Christian ought to have some small area — perhaps an unimportant one — in which he can exercise his own will?
But what is "unimportant"? Can we ever be sure that we know?
Feeling discouraged after a batting slump in baseball seemed unimportant to me once. What could be more natural than feeling "down in the dumps" after failing to hit in two or three games in a row? Then one day I thought twice about this and realized that in my dedication, I had reserved this little island of self-pity. I surrendered it and found that in the strength of Christ, I could rejoice and be thankful — even in a batting slump. Why not? Was His power and purpose in my life diminished by my failure to hit a baseball?
As the weeks and months passed, player after player approached me with words to this effect, "I've been watching you, Jerry. When you went into that slump a few weeks ago, I waited for you to blow up. But you didn't. I hit slumps once in a while too. I want to know how you do it." And time after time, there was an opportunity I would never have had otherwise, to tell another man about the Lord.
Today I have come to realize that Jesus Christ is capable of making every decision in my life. Nothing is too unimportant for His direction.
When my wife and I and our two children arrived in Mesa, Arizona, where the Chicago Cubs were to hold spring training, our first concern was the securing of a furnished house. It would have been natural to start
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through the classified ads, investigating each prospect on no other basis than our budget and our personal likes and dislikes. But prayer changed the character of this search. Instead of a routine chore, it became an adventure. Our goal: to discover the one place God had prepared for us.
After a patient, expectant search and looking to Him for guidance, we found it. And in the weeks that followed, in the neighborhood contacts, the friends we met, the opportunities offered for witness, we saw some of God's reasons for choosing that house for us.
Is it impractical to pray about such things? Are we actually being unnecessarily "pious"? If we had picked the house ourselves, without prayer, couldn't God have blessed us in some other location just as well?
I don't believe so.
"The just shall live by faith." I take this to mean that the believer in Jesus Christ lives by quite another standard than the standards held in honor by the world around us. The world gives lip service to faith but is actually guided by common sense. Of course the Christian is not "against" common sense. He sees that it has a place, like the law of gravity. It is good as far as it goes. But it just doesn't go far enough.
The Christian has entrusted his life to Almighty God. This means his life joins the great mainstream of God's purpose as it sweeps onward to a grand climax somewhere in the future. It is impossible to examine such a surrendered life with as small a yardstick as common sense. Many times that life will seem to be doing something impractical or even downright foolish.
The Christian is simply marching to a different drum beat.
If anyone would know a victorious and happy life as
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a follower of Christ, he had better not look back. He had better not reserve certain private areas of his life for his own tinkering and management. He had better decide to be a Christian "all the way."
Prayer
Dear Lord, help me now to make un unreserved dedication of myself to Your Son. Help me to believe in His all-sufficiency and His willingness to live His life within me. Teach me moment by moment to depend upon His wisdom, His strength and His love. I ask it in His name. Amen.
Jerry Kindall was an All-American baseball player with the University of Minnesota. Played second base for the Minnesota Twins.
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