And yet, we still do....

 I was sitting out on the deck a while ago enjoying the start of the day with a freshly brewed cup of coffee.  The sea air is just wonderful to me and when it's quiet, like it was this morning, you can hear the roar of the ocean.  This morning, I could actually hear the waves crashing into the shore.  It was just so  peaceful and it gave me time to think about some things that are going on around me.

I often times don't understand God's plans for my life.  I found myself kind of wrestling with them for a minute or two yesterday, but I'm mindful of one very important thing in this season of my life.  The last time I was here (and there was a last time!) I let my feelings and the feelings of others get in the way of what God had in mind.  I made a decision on my own and expected God to bless that decision.  Clearly, He did not and I spent a long time learning some very hard lessons.

I'm not in the mood to fight another battle I can't win.  So with that in mind, I started thinking about how many times I've done that; how many times we do that as human beings:  Think we know more than God.  

I'm a believer.  I just don't know about God, I know God, insofar as what He's chosen to reveal to me about Himself.  I have this incredible relationship with my Jesus, who walks with me toward what the Father has determined for me since before the foundation of the world.  That was kind of something the pastor talked about on Sunday.  That God had plans for us from always.  He also talked about our responsibility as man to respond to God.  Interesting thing, kind of toward the deep end of the pool of faith and in the context of salvation, but I think you can apply those same principles to our own lives.

I still think sometimes that I know better than God.  Granted, I don't act on those thoughts with any sort of regularity, but those moments do happen and the battle kind of gets fought in my mind.  Am I gonna trust me and how I'm thinking, feeling, desiring?  Or am I gonna trust that God's plan is best?  Or His timing?

I think most of the battles I've fought recently have been more about God's timing than anything.  I understand that there are a lot of things I cannot change.  I can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, change me though and often I find myself praying that prayer.  It usually comes when I get upset over what someone else is doing, so I pray for that person and then pray that God would change me.  If I'm upset over something, I often find it's my own selfishness or not looking at that person like Jesus does at the root cause of me being upset.

Not everything God asks us to do is going to be easy.  Nor is all of it going to end well for us, either.  But I'm also mindful and ever in awe that God's plans are always going to prevail.  Knowing that, I just wonder how much time we waste trying to wrestle with what we want vs. what God wants when in the end that last statement is going to win the day.

What are you wrestling with God over?  Is there something you need to surrender to Him over?  If so, I'd invite you to make that move today.  Surrender to God isn't losing.  It's quite often the key to victory.