I can’t stop thinking about Luke 12:20. It’s placed within the story of a wealthy man who’s had some financial success and wants more. This man plans to build a barn so big that if any of his crops failed he would still have enough to be well taken care of until his dying day. Luke 12:20 is God’s response to the man:

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’” NIV

This verse is often used in reference to greed and having an abundance of financial success, but it feels bigger than that. God demanded the life of this man. Most of the time when this verse is read, it’s thought that God meant for this man to die. In all honesty, He probably did. This hypothetical man with this great wealth (who only wanted to protect his future) was doing something wrong. That something is often described as greed. I’m not going to argue that it’s not, but what if God were demanding this man’s life? What if He was asking the man to hand his life over to Him? What if He was waiting to receive the very thing He entrusted the man with in the first place?

In Christian circles there is an abundance of talk about surrender and being God’s and living life for Him. It’s in most of the songs we sing and sometimes a part of our daily lives. But what does it look like to have our lives demanded from us?

I struggle with what this looks like for me daily. I struggle with the contrast of living in the moment and going to college. I struggle with the not exactly opposite ideas of planning for my future and leaving room for God—not a convenient space, but an uncomfortable one where He can really work. What does it look like to not to be fully surrendered, but to have God demand our lives? For Him to say that something isn’t right even in our perfectly normal lives? What does it feel like? And how do we obey?

I know what it looks like to obey normal demands. When my mom demands me to do the dishes, I do them. When my teachers demand that I finish a paper, I try. And when my cat demands my soul attention…. I give in half of the time. But God demands my life. He calls me to put on trial every thought (2 Cor. 10:5), He tells me to give when I have enough (Luke 3:11), He requires me to leave my life wherever and however it may be and follow if I’m asked (Matt 8:22). He wants me to talk to the people around me (Mark 12:30/Matt 5:44) and sometimes he wants me to sing (1 Peter 4:10). And all of that is hard. God wants more than I think I have. He wants us to trust Him with every breath He gives us and in every decision we make big or small.

And we have to. I don’t trust myself to keep breathing. I don’t trust that I’ll wake myself up in the morning, I don’t trust that I’ll make my body moving, or that I’ll let my brain rest, or that I’ll proportionately distribute blood and nutrients throughout my body. I don’t even trust that I’ll use the bathroom when I’m half asleep at 3 O’clock in the morning. How could I trust myself with my life? With my whole life.

It sounds kind of manipulative doesn’t it? God trusted me so that I would trust Him? We do that all the time and not always with the purest intentions either. If God gave us all life and didn’t let us rely on and trust in Him, how much worse would that be? If God gave us life, not to grow us, or love us, or [insert reason here], but to just watch, how bad would that be?

There are may theological debates you could delve into just with everything I’ve said, and I will gladly watch from the sidelines because I’m not here to complicate simplicity. God demands our lives from us, our everyday live-in-the-moment-but-plan-for-the-future lives. He may want them as they are or He may want them to completely change, but every moment already belongs to Him.