by David Scott Robertson
I quit.
I resign.
I’m done.
It is finished.
I’ve done all that I know to do and it’s not been enough.
I’ve come to the end of my strength.
I’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
I have pulled from all my natural resources,
All my abilities,
All my experience,
And still I have fallen short.
I have cashed in all my favors from friends
And collected on every debt owed me and still I’m coming up short.
I have tried hard and cried hard
And put forth maximum effort with minimum results.
I am undone.
I am disqualified.
I am beached,
Sidelined,
Out of the race,
Run aground on the coral reef of life
And am utterly disgusted at the prospect of being beat to pieces by the pounding tide.
In short,
I am in the very process of
Dying to self,
The very act of crucifying the fallen nature I inherited from my ancestor Adam.
I resign from life as I have known it to be.
And this, I tell you, is good.
Very good.
You see,
Until I die to my carnality,
That fleshly part of all of us that presumes to be the center of the universe,
Until that comes under the
Subjection, authority and blood of Jesus Christ,
We am hamstrung in being of much good to God or anyone else for that matter.
Oh yes, God loves me and you unconditionally when we fall short.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that He created us for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11).
He created us to worship Him;
To Love Him,
To enter into that place that a man in the Old Testament named Enoch did
When he had the testimony that he pleased God
And then Enoch was no more for God took him.
John the Baptist caught the vision when and said,
“He must increase, I must decrease.”
The Apostle Paul caught the vision and said,
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Peter the vision and said,
“Depart from me Lord I am a sinful man” [reference]
The prophet Isaiah caught the vision and said
”Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips…”
The Roman Centurion caught the vision and said,
“I am not worthy to even come to you…”
The Syrophoenician woman with the demon possessed child caught the vision and said,
“[In effect, yes it’s true that I am a dog] but even the puppies eat the crumbs…”
Job caught the vision and said,
“I abhor myself and put my hand over my mouth and shall speak no more.”
John the Beloved caught the vision of the resplendent, glorified Christ in the book of Revelation
And fell at his feet like a dead man.
David Robertson caught the vision and said,
I resign! I deny myself. I take up my cross and follow Jesus. I resign that I have no rights. I resign that I don’t even have to “succeed” in order for me to believe that God loves me. I resign that I am not the master of my own fate, the lifter of my own head, the captain of my own destiny. I resign to the fact that I am neither competent nor qualified to be a man of God, a child of the King, let alone a minister of the gospel. I resign FROM all my reliance on my weak flesh and resign TO be cloaked in the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I resign that He alone has A plan and THE plan for my life.”
So there you have it.
My letter of resignation.
I QUIT…looking to myself and other men for answers and I resolve to look to Father God instead.
I RESIGN…from presumptuous thinking that my gifts, talents, and abilities are what God needs to advance His kingdom, and I resolve to look to Jesus Christ.
I’M DONE…expecting other people to do my praying for me, my fasting for me, or my praising for me. I resolve to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.
Today begins the process of daily mortification of my fleshly nature,
Regular, disciplined, and scheduled abandon
To the spontaneous movement of the Holy Spirit in and through my life.
To live is Christ, to die is gain!
DSR
9/5/00