I surrender all, but...

“As much as I say I’ve put it in God’s hands, I still wonder when He’s gonna let me in on His plan”

Do any of you ever feel like that? That was a quote from a good friend this past week, and she hit exactly what I’ve felt for the past year. As different situations approach me in this life I realize that I cannot control everything, and being a control freak…that’s not very much fun! I like to have anything in order and making sense, especially my own life. When such situations come up, I know the only thing I can do is pray about them and surrender all to God.

But that’s easier said than done…

I don’t know about you, but I’m notorious for “surrendering all” at God’s feet and then when something goes wrong I take it back up into my own hands. It’s nice to say that I trust God when everything’s fine and dandy, but when things look bad I feel the need to provide for myself. This has been my thought all year, when just about anything which could go wrong in my life without drastically altering everything did. I’ve spent many hours crying out to God “I don’t understand, help me understand” in my need to know everything and have control of my life. During those times I never felt any comfort, and I didn’t like the feeling that God wasn’t going to let me in on what He was doing in my life.

That is until one night when I looked up and saw a painting of my favorite verses, Proverbs 3:5-6. They say, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” It was the “lean not on your own understanding” which spoke to me that night, because so many times we rely on what we know and can grasp with our feeble minds, instead of trusting God to do the impossible in our life.

What do you think would happen if we could really, truly trust God with everything and not try to interfere by telling Him what we think would be best? As my pastor once said, “There’d be a lot less heartache.” When we rely on our own strength and understanding, the only thing we’re going to find waiting for us is failure. However, when we trust that God has His hand in our life for a purpose— even if everything seems to be going wrong— our reward will be more than we could ever imagine.