Have You Signed?
Surrendering Everything We Have and Everything We Are to Christ.
By Amber Clay
As I sat across the table from the new car salesman, I felt a pang of fear in my stomach as he handed me the pen and said “please sign here.” I could feel sweat drip from under my arm and slide down the side of my body as I reached for the pen. Thoughts were flooding into my mind. Thoughts like, “is this the right thing to do, will I regret it, what if I change my mind?”
I took a deep breath as I began to remember all of the reasons I had ended up in that plush leather chair. I knew the old convertible Sebring had turned into a money pit with thousands of dollars in repairs just in the past three months. In addition to the 5-year warranty on the new car, the salesman had agreed to a price well below invoice and an extra $2,000 rebate. In my gut, I knew this was the right thing to do. But even those thoughts did not stop the sweat from dripping as I grasped his shiny red pen and began to sign my name in black ink on the bottom of a long piece of paper with lots of small print.
When I looked down and saw my name at the bottom, I felt my chest loosen and I could begin breathing normally. I now felt relieved by the same commitment that had terrified me only a moment ago. Perhaps it was because I knew there was no turning back. The closure felt better than the uncertainty, but the significance of what had been done was significant. I knew that anything that was important enough to be recorded on three different color copies must bear some significance worthy of reflection. My signature was now permanently etched on white, yellow and pink paper. It was final, and I knew it.
Some Christians have spent years at the car salesman’s desk unsure if they should sign. Even though they have professed faith in Christ, they are petrified to take the pen from God’s hand and lay it all on the line.
So they sit with sweat dripping paralyzed by the fear of surrendering their life and their future to Christ. They can hear the sound of doors closing as they agree to follow what must be a narrow path to righteousness. This same feeling of bigness must have enveloped Elisha as he saw Elijah coming toward him in the field. Elisha was out plowing the same fields he had worked in his entire life when he saw God's prophet approaching him. He had to know this was it: the moment he had been waiting for. For the choice he was about to make would forever redirect the course of his entire life. As he stood on his plow, dirt covering his feet and clothes he must have felt the gravity of the decision he was about to make. Without Elijah even speaking, he knew exactly what was being asked. God wanted everything. He wanted him to get off his plow and walk away from all he knew and loved: his family, livelihood, and home. He was being called to be a prophet a very dangerous, life threatening line of work. Surely, the permanence of the decision he was about to make had to sit heavy on his chest. He had to feel the weight of forever bearing down on his shoulders. Answering “yes” to this call would have been an enormous gesture of faith. But what Elisha did next was nothing short of astonishing. “He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people; and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.”
It makes us wonder, why not just kiss his mother and father goodbye and walk away leaving the plow and animals for someone else to tend? Why destroy the tools he had relied on his entire life to sustain him? Perhaps he knew that as long as he left himself an option to return to his old life he wasn’t really choosing to follow Christ. When we leave ourselves even a cracked door, it speaks of our uncertainty in God. It is that uncertainty that leaves us as unless as salt that has lost its saltiness. We become frozen, stuck wishing for a life of greatness and purpose but stuck in our seat with pen in hand unable to sign. In a believer’s life, even the slightest hesitation can be grounds for disqualification. Not because God is looking to penalize us for any slight imperfection but because he cannot entrust eternal matters to those that have not signed their name. Most of us want to sleep on even small decisions, how we invest our retirement where we are going on vacation, so how was he able to make such an enormous decision in only a split second? Where did the confidence come from to not only leave but to burn everything before he left? The story doesn’t tell us, but I believe the answer is he didn’t decide that day. Instead, he made the choice long, long ago. The truth is I think he signed his name in black, permanent ink years before Elijah ever walked across his field. He had accepted his calling before he ever knew his mission. And he spent everyday out in those fields preparing his crops just as God was preparing his heart for greatness. Day by day, God shaped him into the man he needed to be in order to answer his call. And when the time came, he did. Are you waiting for the phone to ring or a knock at the door? Wondering why your life as a believer has been so uneventful? We want to blame God when our life doesn't turn into the adventure we had hoped. When what we thought our life would be doesn’t even resemble what our life has become we are left to look up to God and ask “why?”
But before we begin to question God’s motives, we must first look inside. Have we signed? Have we laid everything we are and everything we have at God’s feet? Because it is only then that we can sit in expectation of how God might choose to use our life for his honor and glory.
Copyright © April 30, 2008 – Amber Clay. All rights reserved.
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