“To WHOM do I Bow my knee?”

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.  Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

-1 Chronicles 29:11 (NIV)

There is a battle that is constantly being fought in my heart over why I do what I do.  This battle is for the glory, for the prominence, for the expansion of my influence beyond my current sphere, to see praise and honor ascribed to my life and work, and to be the one whom people turn to in their hour of need because I have wisdom that no one else can offer.  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            You probably noticed a recurrence of the word ‘my’ in that description and that is the problem.  I know with every fiber of my being that as the Chronicler stated above “the greatness, the power, the glory, the majesty, and the splendor are the Lord’s.”  Everything is God’s, all I have, all I am, all my gifts, talents, and abilities.  Everything God gave me through inspiration and revelation, as well as everything that I have learned through my life experience is HIS.  Nothing I have comes from my own ability to do anything.  Everything we have comes from or through the hands of God and so we can know that God is in control of all. 

            My struggle is not in the knowledge of this truth.  My struggle comes in the motivation behind doing what I do.  Do I write this article to prove how faithful I am to the will of God, secretly seeking glory for myself through a show of humility?  Do I write this article simply to give honor and glory to God, the giver of all things?  Do I write this article because I am moved by the Holy Spirit to share a struggle of mine so that others can know they are not alone in this battle?  Why do I do what I do?  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            I am confident in saying that my motivations typically begin with a desire to be transparent, to connect with others, to lift up the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to carry a word of the Lord that has been revealed to me by the Holy Spirit, and more.  These are generally the initial driving forces behind why I do what I do, but I have to admit that as I am doing what I have been driven to do by God, my selfish motivations come calling and then I care more about how I can benefit from this call of God.  I ask myself, how can I show my wisdom in this?  How can I be made great through this?  How can I extend my influence beyond my borders through this calling of God?  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            The struggle here is, I am following the call of God, BUT I am making it about ME.  This is a struggle that is always being fought.  The only way I know to keep myself behind the scenes is to continually come back to the initial reason that I do what I do, which is the Call of God.  It is to the one who called me that I must continually come back and bow at HIS feet.  It is he that must receive all the glory, all the majesty, all the splendor; because if I receive these things, then I will FAIL.  When HE receives all the glory, majesty, and splendor then I no longer live but it is Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2.20).  To WHOM do I bow my knee?