Pawning Life

I don’t always watch Pawn Stars

But when I do I watch it for 6 hours straight.

Before I get any nasty emails, that Pawn Stars with an “aw,” which if you don’t know is a show on the History Chanel.  It’s about some guys that own a pawn shop in Las Vegas and some of the crazy things that come through their store.  Whenever someone comes in with an item, they ask if they are looking to pawn it, where they have the chance to get it back later, or if they want to simply sell the item to the store.

Many times, without realizing it, we view our life with Christ this same way.  Some of us pawned our lives to Jesus, hoping to pick them up again at the tail end of High School and into College.  Only after we have kids might we consider letting Him borrow our lives again.  Others of us sold our lives to Jesus, hoping to get a return on that investment in terms of greater blessings or dreams coming true.  If that investment doesn’t pay off we may have to rethink the offer.

For those who follow Jesus, we have given our lives to Him.  In fact, the Bible says we were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20), so in reality they aren’t our lives at all.  But Jesus doesn’t force open our hand; He waits for us to understand that true life comes from being truly His.  That means that He is in control.  When God seems to be using your life to do something totally different from what you expected or hoped He might, fight the urge to take back your life from the God who gave His for it.