Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.  Romans 12:1

I am the first one to admit that the verse above is one of those verses that I hear "blah blah blah" in my mind when I read it.  You know what I mean.  One of those verses that you hear so often, that you no longer feel that it is relevant.  I think, "Yeah, I got that already, God.  Thanks for sharing". 
But I don't have it.  I am far from having it!
This morning I did my morning ritual of getting on the scale.  It hasn't done anything but bounce around the same 3 numbers for the last 10 days.  I got angry!  I have had weight loss surgery, for goodness sake!  I am eating next to nothing!  That numbers should be moving!!! (No worries, Bryan has now hidden the scale from me.)  Didn't I have this surgery so that I could LOSE weight?  Wasn't that the point?  Wasn't it supposed to make it easier?  But, here I am, in the same hold pattern that has defined my life.   Lose a little weight and then the scale stops budging. 
So, off to my bible I go.  I am MAD.  I want answers!  And wouldn't you know, this verse was my nugget.  So, still a little ticked at the situation, I look up the meaning of sacrifice.  In my mind, I had already given the sacrifice in the way of 85% of my stomach being taken out of me! 
This is what sacrifice means:   Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.  Then we must combine that with "living". 
There is my AH-HA moment....I can't just do it once.  The surgery wasn't my sacrifice.  It is what I choose to do daily with my body that matters.  Right now, it isn't my food choices that will be my sacrifice, because those are predetermined for me.  It is my mind that I must sacrifice daily.  I must turn over my expectations and sacrifice them to the Lord. 
The verse goes on to say, that this is our "act of worship".  Really?  So, God gets the same amount of pleasure out of what we do with our bodies, as he does when we sing praises to him?  Sit with that.  We have been so trained that worship is what we do on Sundays with the music and the lights and the production.  Friends, it is SO much more than that!  It is what we do moment by moment, choice by choice with our bodies!  Let's put a smile on our Father's face today!  In all that we do and think, may it be to the glory of our Father!