When I feel this way I often journal to get my thoughts on paper and pray as I write. It's a sort of dialogue with God full of questions, prayers, pleadings, and it usually ends with me saying something like, "I don't get this, but you do God. Help me." That is today.
After I spent time scribbling my thoughts, I opened the book I've been reading to today's spot.
Keeping a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot, The Supremacy of Christ
"Sometimes I am asked to speak to young people who are toying with the idea of being missionaries. They want to know how I discovered the will of God. The first thing was to settle once and for all the supremacy of Christ in my life, I tell them. I put myself utterly and forever at His disposal, which means turning over all the rights to myself, my body, my self-image, my notions of how I am to serve my Master ... I tell these earnest kids that the will of God is always different from what they expect, always bigger, and ultimately, infinitely more glorious than their wildest imaginings.
But there are deaths to die. Paul found that out -- daily, he said. That is the price of following the way of the cross -- of course. If our object is to save others we must be clear that we cannot save ourselves. Jesus couldn't either.
This scares people. Yet what is there to fear when Christ holds first place in our lives? Where, other than in the will of the Father, shall we expect to find significance, security, and serenity? ... I cannot imagine a more wonderfully blessed life than mine. Faithfulness of a loving Father -- that's what I've found, every day of every week of every year, and it gets better."
God's will has always been a mystery to me, some illusive thing that every Christian should know and yet they don't. Why is that? Maybe it's because, if it's actually as if Elisabeth Elliot wrote we don't want it. It scares us. It scares me. To put myself utterly and forever at His disposal, turning over all my rights, experiencing death of dreams, hopes, or even people. Yea, I'd say that's scary stuff. And yet Elisabeth reminds us that there is no fear when Christ is present. He is the giver of significance, security and serenity which is the exact opposite of being scared. It's peace.
"... the will of God is always different from what they expect, always bigger, and ultimately, infinitely more glorious than their wildest imaginings."
Am I willing to surrender my plans, hopes, dreams, desires, expectations in order to discover the will of God?
Today, I say yes. And I will try to say yes again tomorrow and the next day. Because I have to believe that if Elisabeth Elliott, who experienced all that she did {read about her life} and still says that she "cannot imagine a more wonderfully blessed life" must be on to something. Maybe in the end surrender isn't so bad after all.
Reading this today helped me put all my worries into perspective and though I don't know what the future holds {when or if I'll get a job}, I do know from experience that God is a faithful and loving Father and that I can trust in HIM every day, every week and every year.
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