Whatever It Takes
By Carolyn Bost Crabtree

A couple of Sundays ago our pastor was preaching on how our commitment to God should be so strong that whatever it takes to become closer to God, we should be willing for God to accomplish this in our lives. He mentioned an old gospel song that has come back around called “Whatever It Takes”. I can remember years ago when our family still lived in Versailles that I was listening to that song on a record (Yes, I meant “record” and I still have it to play on an old record player). I can remember this as if it were yesterday. I was sitting on the floor in our family room listening to the music and I began to pray that song. I know this sounds strange, but I took the words and turned them into a prayer. I believe that the Lord can use many ways to reach us – music among them.

This particular song touched me deeply at that moment and I have prayed it a number of times since that time as well. In fact, when Pastor was preaching that Sunday the words to the song came back to me and God told me in my heart that praying that once or twice is not enough. I found myself convicted that I had not prayed it lately. He reminded me that “Whatever It Takes to Draw Closer to You, Lord” had not been strong enough in my life lately. I prayed it again and I admit that I feared a little what the requirements would be for me to be closer to Him.

A few years after the first time I prayed the song, I looked back on our lives as a family and found that God had required of us everything I had prayed in the lyrics. There are too many to cover in this devotional, but parts of the song say:

•  “Take my houses and lands” – We had a very nice home in Versailles with about an acre of land and a large park behind our house. For subdivision living it was beautiful and living there was the longest time I had lived in one place in my entire life. Greg and I started believing that God wanted us to move away from this home and move to Wilmore. We knew nothing about Wilmore at the time, but we both knew that was where God wanted us to be. We bought a home that we thought was smaller with a lot that was definitey much smaller, but in moving there we were able to get out of debt on our home. The community of Wilmore was a wonderful place to rear our teenagers and provided a place for us to minister to students attending the Seminary and college. We made friends there with people who are now scattered all over the world doing God’s work.

•  “Take my dreams and my plans” – My dreams in life started out being very self-centered and prideful. I wanted to be the best teacher, the best mother, the best wife, the best – you name it. I had no idea about being a home-schooling, stay-at-home mom. That was the hardest teaching job I have ever had in my life, but God’s ways are always the most rewarding. The relationship that I have with my own children that was built by home-schooling far outweighs anything else that could have been in my life. I treasure what God put into my heart during those times, no matter how hard it seemed to me at the time.

• "If You call me someday to a land far away, I’ll go and Your will obey” – God did not call Greg and me to a land faraway. Forkland seemed very far from the land of Lexington, KY at the time we first moved here, and it is far different in the lifestyle we had there vs. here. I know this is where God wants us and I thank Him every day for the life here. Lexington no longer has any pull to me at all, even though both of us worked there and attended church there for many of our married years. However, God has chosen to call our granddaughter to a land far away. Rachel has been called to serve God in a foreign country and I must admit that at first I dreaded thinking about her being so far away in such a dangerous place for a girl who has childhood diabetes. But I know in my heart that God has given her parents and us as her grandparents a supernatural peace to leave Rachel in His hands. God’s Will must be obeyed and then the Bible tells us that “joy comes in the morning.

Yes, when we become serious about God and drawing close to Him, He will require sacrifice and the cost may seem great in the beginning. The results, however, are priceless and the sacrifice becomes much more gain than we can ever imagine. I want to encourage us all, including myself, to do all that is necessary to draw closer to Jesus Christ our Lord and to each other. Our lives will never be the same and “joy comes in the morning.