Whatever He wants

My phone had problems, for all the people that know me you realize how bad it really was. If your name was in my contact list my phone would completely reject your phone call. As if that wasn't bad enough for certain people it wouldn't receive text messages. So naturally I was praying for a new phone. I didn't realize that Jesus would actually answer that prayer… Oh me of little faith. Jesus completely provided for me a new phone and a plan that I could actually afford! 

While I was at Christian Youth In Action training I was carrying my precious phone in the morning while I was getting ready. I left the dorm rooms with my roommate Jessica and we started the long trek from the girl’s dorms to the main building Steele, where the staff meeting was. When we entered the building I was carrying a large box and my binder so I put it all down and realized that my phone wasn't among all the stuff I was carrying.  I thought "No problem, I must have just left it in my bag in the dorms. I will get it after breakfast," I didn't tell anyone that I was missing my phone because I knew that I would find it and I wasn't worried. So the day went on and breakfast past and I still couldn't find my phone.

Morning devotions past and I couldn't find my phone. I had a couple of seconds before my study group met so I went up to my room and tore it apart looking for my phone. I searched under my bed…. In the closet, on the dresser, in the drawers, in the bathroom on the shelves! You name it I looked there. Still no phone. I silently prayed "God, please help me find my phone. I give it to you to take care of." I wasn't worried, I knew that God would answer my prayer and I would find it. 

Study time went fine and evaluations went without a hitch. All the time I was praying that I would be able to find my phone when I went back to Steele. By the time I got there I told about three people that I was looking for my phone and during one of the classes I told the staff that wasn't teaching, to keep an eye out for it. By this time I was telling people "I guess I just have a Job moment, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord’" because I could not find it anywhere. It came to a point where after lunch one of the other staff members, Ryan, and I looked all over the campus, we asked every college campus worker that we saw and still there was nothing. I still was not worried. And I started to tell people, “I know the Lord is going to answer my prayer, just not in my timing.” I was a little disturbed because I couldn't find it anywhere and I was looking and looking!

I decided that because I wasn't going to look for my phone I might as well sit and listen to the next class. Ryan was teaching and he started talking about giving your life to God and specifically, whenever, wherever, whatever God wants. When he got to the ‘Whatever’ part of his class I felt like the Lord speaking to me, "Charissa, are you really willing to give me whatever I want? Even your phone? Are you really willing to give it to me?". I was all talk and no action. I said I trusted Him… I said that I gave Him my phone…. But had I really given it completely to God? As I searched my heart I realized that I hadn't. This realization hit me right between the eyes.  I stood up and left the class… I was exhausted and I was being dealt with on a deeper level that I wanted to go. I was angry… angry that God would ask that from me. My new phone.  Why?! I came out to the desk and Mrs. Jane looked up at me, I lost it. Tears started to fall down my cheeks and right at that moment all the teens started pouring out of the classrooms into the hallway. I immediately checked my tears and asked "Can I take a nap?". 

As I walked over to my room I thought about everything that had happened that day. I changed my shirt and looked over the whole room again. I stood in front of a mirror in my bedroom and prayed the why me kind of prayer. Stephanie followed me into my room and started to search. Angry tears spilled down my face as I turned to her, "I looked everywhere! I am realizing that I haven’t given it completely to God. What if the answer to this prayer is No…" then at that moment I looked up to the ceiling and said "Even if the answer to finding my phone is no, I will still love you, I will still follow you and I will still do what you want me to do." Then I climbed up in bed and sobbed. Stephanie stood there looking asking silently whether or not she should stay. I turned to her and said, "I gave it to Him, but I didn't actually think that he would ask me for my phone. I didn't think that he would want me to give it to him. Not for real." She shook her head in agreement then started to leave the room as I lay down to take a nap.

As I started to close my eyes, I heard a voice at the end of my bed. "Charissa, I found it." I looked over, "Where?" Stephanie came to the side of the bed holding my phone and said "Right here in front of the mirror." I was happy, but I was also very upset. I had stood in front of that mirror for at least twenty seconds. I had walked all over campus looking for it and I had pulled other people into helping me look for it and all this time it was right in front of my eyes.

Jesus had put me through all of that to show me what really mattered. Knowing Him. In the end my phone has no heavenly value. The lives of the teens at CYIA have value… The time that I spend in God’s word has value. But my phone and my earthly things, don’t have any value because I am not going to keep them past this life. I came into the world with nothing and I am leaving the world with nothing. Like Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:7 “for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.” Knowing Jesus is the only thing that really matters in this life… and if we can live a life that pleases Him. We have the greatest reward in bringing Him pleasure. He really deserves whatever we have, it’s all His anyway.  I would just encourage you to give whatever it is that God wants you to, because He knows what He is doing far more than you or I do.