It’s freezing outside and I’m laundering summer dresses and skirts for an upcoming ministry trip to Africa.

While I remove the Thrift Store stapled-in tags I’m reliving how alive I feel, spiritually alive, when I’m there.
It’s hot and dusty and glorious.
Yesterday I read a devotional about Sacrifice from the old classic Daily Thoughts for Disciples by Oswald Chambers. His text was Genesis 22:10.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.
Genesis 22:10

Chambers declares the truth without equivocation.
He tells me where I go wrong in my thinking and I swear it’s like he’s been reading my mind.
And, he doesn’t let me get away with sloppy thinking.
He doesn’t cut me any slack.
I love finding out how wrong I’ve been.

The truth speaks to a deeper truth I claim to know:
It’s not about me, it’s not about us.
It’s all about God.
About His plan, His purpose, His generosity in giving us a stake in His Big Idea.

Sacrifice in the Bible means that we give to God the best we have; it is the finest form of worship. Sacrifice is not giving up things, but giving to God with joy the best we have. We have dragged down the idea of surrender and of sacrifice; we have taken the life out of the words, and made them mean something sad and weary and despicable. In the Bible they mean the very opposite. To go out in surrender to God means the surrendering of the miserable sense of my own unimportance: Am I willing to surrender that mean little sense for the great big idea God has for me? Am I willing to surrender the fact that I am an ignorant, useless, worthless, too-old person? There is more hinderance to God’s work because people cling to a sense of unworthiness than because of conceit.
. . .Abraham surrendered himself to the completely supernatural God. Have you got hold of a supernatural God?—not, do you know what God is going to do? You cannot know, but you have faith in Him, and therefore He can do what He likes. (February 8)

I’m inviting God to do what He likes.
He’ll take care of the part He has for me and all the other details involved.
I’m offering my best to Him.
The First Fruits.
No leftovers.
No excuses, no unworthiness, nothing that argues with a clearly supernatural God and His Big Idea for me.

Will you let go of your own excuses and get hold of a supernatural God?
He’s got Big Ideas for you.