What to do When God Asks for More Than You Can Give

When I was 18, I asked my high school youth leader, “What if God asks me to marry someone I don’t love?”

His questioning reply was, “Why do you think he would do that?”

My response: “He did to Esther.”

See, I’ve known from the time I was very young that my life was not my own.  From the time I was 9 and decided that God was telling me to become a missionary, I have imagined my life ending early à la Jim Elliot.  Now, I may never marry someone I don’t love and I may live a long, peaceful life, but the point of those stories is that I came to grips early on with the fact that following Christ meant that I was choosing to obey His plan and His will, rather than my own.  I have always known that I would sacrifice a lot to follow Christ.  I knew that God would ask difficult things of me, and that it would be worth it.  But knowing that does not make living it out any easier.

A few months ago I was presented with an opportunity to serve God overseas.  At first, it seemed the perfect opportunity, but as I realized what exactly this would entail I struggled with questions of first whether I was capable and second whether I was ready to make the sacrifices to pursue this.  It feels as though God has asked me to give more than I am capable of.  It has been a long, difficult road filled with soul searching and spiritual battles.  And I’m not at the end of it yet.  Honestly I’ve been struggling for over a month to write this blog post because I simply did not know the answer to the title question. 

What do you do when God asks for more than you can give?  I can’t answer that for you, maybe I can’t answer that at all, but I can tell you what I have been doing through this process.

#1. Remind myself of truth amongst the chaos of my mind.  Truth: I am hurting over what God is asking of me.  Truth: I am loved completely by God.  Truth: God is good.  Truth: My life is not about me.

Some of these truths are comforting, some are hard, some resonate deeply, and some feel so far away right now.  But they are true and truth is solid.  Amongst my chaotic, shifting thoughts and emotions, I can stand on these truths.  They are my guiding stars.

Which leads me to #2: Praise God through the tears.  Yes, I am hurting.  My heart feels like it is breaking over the things God is asking me to give up.  But I will honor and glorify him through the tears.  I will continue to sing his praises.  Because even though I do not feel like God is good at the moment, I know that he is.  Deep to my very soul, I know the truth. 

Therefore #3: I will obey.  Based on the truth of who God is, I chose a long time ago that I would obey him, no matter what.  And so through my tears and my hurt and my heartbreak, I will obey.  Because God is still better.  I wrote in my last blog post that following God costs everything.  I certainly wasn’t lying about that.  But I also said, and believe, that in following God I gain everything and more.

There are things that I want and things that I need.  Right now, there are two paths before me and each of them has a cost.  In one, I foresee the cost will be at least temporarily losing my family, my friends, everything that makes me comfortable and everything I know and love.  In the other, the cost seems to be losing the depth of my relationship with God.  It would break my heart to lose my family and friends, but it would break me completely to lose God.  I don’t want to lose my family.  I cannot lose God.

This has been an extraordinarily trying season of life for me.  I have felt as though God was asking more of me than I could give.  I have cried a little a lot and cried out to God even more.  But ultimately, I trust God implicitly.  I trust his plans and I trust his character.  And so even through the tears, even through the fear, even through whatever comes my way, I will say “yes” to anything God asks of me.