So I’ve already mentioned that I have a problem with submitting to authority generally. I’m actively working on that, but what I conveniently forgot to mention was the fact that I have a real problem surrendering to God. I just don’t trust Him.

I realised today that it’s not that I don’t want to surrender to God; I do, my soul really wants to let go of those things my mind and my heart really really want and just say, “Hey God, I’m ok if you don’t give me X…or even XX as an alternative. Whatever you want, I am fine with…Oh and thank you for anything you give me because I know that that’s best for me!” I do, I want to be that child-of-God. But uhhhmmm, yahhhh; ““Not I” said the cat”. Nope, not Wendy. No bueno.

I’m more, “C’mon on now God, I know you want Y but I really want X, can’t you work something out so that X can just happen for me? PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!” And if He ignores my composed pleas, I’m very willing to break it down in hood style, you know, let my inner Niger-delta amazon ventilate in pidgin English flavour like, “Chairman, do something fo’ girls nah, you sef suppose know say at all, at all, na ‘im bad pass!” Lol.

It’s not that I don’t trust God to do good for me, to bring good to my life. I do, I know that his plans are ALWAYS good when it comes to me…its just that I also know about God’s ways! Ugh! They can be hard! They always have lessons; you can never just claim the prize. I am suspicious of God because He is unpredictable and once I make myself available to Him, I don’t know how I may be tasked. I don’t surrender to God because I don’t trust Him. I don’t trust Him to make the best choices for ME. Although I know that His plans are good, I trust myself more, I know my abilities, I understand my desires and so I logically believe that I can plan my life the best.

Now here’s the problem. I plan and plan…and Life comes and just turns my plans on their heads. *whomp!*

So, I have made a decision to try this surrendering thing for a bit. I mean, what’s there to lose? I plan but indices I never foresaw while planning overtake my plans, I might as well give up my hopes and dreams to the one that actually sees the full view. *Shrugs*. I’ve thought about it carefully and there are a few reasons to surrender.
1. God is omniscient; He can see the end from the beginning. Much better to go on a journey with someone who has been to the destination before and has a good understanding of how to get there. That person has insight and so there is no need to stumble in the dark; he is your human torch, he will light the way to your destination. You journeying along on the other hand, do not know the way and cannot see beyond the bend in the road of this journey. Makes more sense to go along with God, He gets it more than you think. He can see way down the road and sometimes it takes us a long time to understand but we look back and realise that so many things make sense and/or were so necessary, in hindsight.

2. In my experience, I find that when I ignore God’s directives that He gave me in the first place and go my own way, I eventually end up doing what He wanted and willed in the first place…you go round and round and end up in the exact place He told you about ages ago. The difference is you have wasted so much time and effort and you return like the prodigal son; full of painful memories, destroyed self-worth, warped ideas on life etc…and you’re still in the same damn place He tried to tell you about in the first place. You can’t outrun God’s will for your life, just ask Jonah. Or, if you don’t believe me on the pointlessness of living out of God’s will, try this on for superior wastage of time and effort; The Israelite Journey (Exodus), classic case.

3. God’s way is always the best. There is one virtue of God we always seem to forget when extolling Him. We say He is holy, righteous, wonderful, worthy, marvellous etc…we always forget that God is INTELLIGENT. He is so super, incredibly smart that it makes me scared sometimes. When I look back over my life, I begin to see that there were things that I didn’t understand at the time I was going through them but a little while later, when I looked back on things I was just impressed by God and His ability to work things out. I’m like, *gasp* “NOOOOOOOOO! Ohhh so that’s why I went there so I could meet him and he could tell me and…How did THOSE dots connect?! So THAT’s what you were doing?!”

Submitting is hard to do but sometimes it is only in the posture of submission that we can hear God, that He can intervene. When we come to the end of ‘us’- our humanity- God comes to the beginning of His divinity. When we submit to His will for our lives, we silence all other voices and just let the Master teach us how to walk in His footsteps, how to touch and hold on to our dreams, how to find, use and retain principles, purpose, power and our prizes.

Submitting is hard to do but it is certainly worth it. So I’ll try it, hell it’s better than what I’ve got ATM!