Keeping My Marbles

In reading "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris the other day, I came across a short and relevant anecdote that is worth sharing. This book is one that I read as a senior in high school. Coming back to it four years later, I'm finding much knowledge in this book the second time I read it, not just about dating, but the means by which I view and treat all of my relationships. 

Making the Trade

One day a boy who has a bag of marbles proposed a trade with a little girl who has a bag of candy. The girl gladly agrees. But as the boy gets out his marbles, he realizes that he can't bear to part with some of them. Rather dishonestly, he takes three of his best marbles and hides them under his pillow. The boy and girl make the trade, and the girl never knows he has cheated her. But that night, while the girl lies fast asleep, the boy has no peace. He's wide awake, pondering a question that nags at him: "I wonder if she kept her best candy, too?" 
Like that little boy, many of us walk through life plagued by the question "Has God given me His best?" But the question that we must answer first is "Am I giving God my best?"

The explanation in the book goes on to explain: "You and I will never experience God's best - in singleness or in marriage - until we give God our all. We've help on to old attitudes foolishly clutching a lifestyle that the world tells us will bring fulfillment. God asks us to hand it all over to Him. 

Yup, I've been keeping some of my marbles, too. Whether this has been my attitude, my habits, my trust in self, I have yet to give God my best, all of the time.