You would think that at my age (undisclosed but over 50), I would already know what I wanted to be…but I don’t. Up until now, I’ve been what I needed, what other people expected, what my kids needed, what was the next expected step, and on and on. But lately, I’m discovering a new way of looking at my life and it’s causing me to question some of my decisions from past, but more importantly, it’s causing me to closely examine my future.
I’ve recently read and studied Charles Swindoll’s book So You Want to be Like Christ? Eight Essentials To Get You There and one of those “essentials” is SURRENDER. If you are like me, as soon as you saw that word, something clinched inside you and you thought “Nah, I’m not reading that.” But I read it anyway, and what I learned is that to truly know God and have a close relationship with him, you have to surrender your position (and your possessions, and your plans, and YOUR PEOPLE – that one stings the hardest, but that’s a topic for a different post).
You see, I have made my decisions based on the people and the expectations around me up until this point in my life, and now I’m realizing that if I had only surrendered those decisions to God earlier – I’m a bit of a control freak – He would have used me in ways that I cannot even imagine. Sure, I prayed about the decisions, but let’s face it, I was actually just praying for God to bless MY decision or MY plan. I didn’t actually relinquish the entire thing to God and then LISTEN to what He was telling me to do! There is a difference.
So, as I enter this next season in my life, I will try to do so realizing that I am NOT in control, and that if I surrender control, I can expect blessings, peace, and contentment.
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “IF the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
JAMES 4: 14-16