This is the
third of three key lessons that the Lord has been teaching me over the
years.
This has
taken longer for me to accept because it meant relinquishing that desire to
control my life and hand it over to the Lord.
It takes faith to let go and allow the Father to have his way in our
lives. The more we hand over our
decisions to him, the greater peace will be experienced. There is still a long way to go and to reach
a point where in every decision and action God is in total control may never
happen. But Mags Duggan has said it well
when she says, “I’m discovering that, as
I acknowledge and surrender to God control over the timing in my life, on my
best days I am becoming more rested, less anxious, and more willing to wait for
God to act.”[1] That is what we can look forward to as we submit
our lives to Him.
As we have
moved around and experienced many different situations, one thing has become
clear – our Father is in control. Of
course we know that in our heads, but do we believe it? So often there are personal motives at work
when we want to be in control. It may be
pride, a desire for popularity or fear, or other possible reasons. In so doing, we aren’t bringing glory to God but
seeking the glory for ourselves.
As we see
God at work in our lives and situations our faith in Him is strengthened. This
enables us to trust Him more. When living in Japan
Letting God set the agenda can be
scary. However, we can trust God to do
what ultimately will be for our good. With
the present pandemic and being restricted to our homes, Some of us may have
more time to sit and be quiet, to read and pray and to listen for God to
speak. However, sitting still and not
doing can be quite stressful and uncomfortable, but with God’s help and grace He
will enable us to be where we can hear His voice.
When we moved to Chippenham, I decided
to stop doing and let my Father set the agenda for what I did each day. As I sat doing nothing except to read the
Bible, pray and listen, making myself available for whatever the Lord wanted, He
gave me different opportunities. This
was quite a reversal for me a doer and workaholic who wants to get on with
things. So to wait for our Father to move was quite uncharacteristic.
The benefit of letting Him set the
agenda was that I didn’t feel rushed off my feet like I usually did and felt
more relaxed about life, knowing that I could trust Him with every situation. Even the part time cleaning job at a school became
a place where God challenged me about whether this was now what He wanted for
me. What were my motives for working? What was the purpose of the job? Was it to provide some financial
benefit? Was I really trusting God to
provide? Did He want me to use this time
in other ways? I prayed one day for
clarity about the job and very shortly after we received a gift through the
post that encouraged me and was part of the confirmation for giving up the
job. A few days after submitting my
resignation we received another more substantial gift in the post which was
totally unexpected, another clear indication that our Father could be trusted
to provide.
Even in the
move back to Newent, it was reassuring to know that we could leave it with God
and let him take control of the sale and move.
It wasn’t a good time to be moving house, but it was clearly His plan.
We had four interested people within two weeks, had an offer soon after and we
were able to make an offer on a place in Newent straight away and with only
three people in the chain. There were
many others matters about the move for which we give thanks for – good weather
on the day of the move, a couple of weeks of lovely weather as we settled in,
that we were moved before the flooding in Gloucester and that we were settled
before the lockdown. So many things
which point to our Father’s love and care poured out on us. Even if it hadn’t gone smoothly we could
still have rested assured that the Lord was in control and at the right time
and in the right way He would have made His will clear to us as to what He is
doing in our lives.
What we
need to remember though is that the Lord will not work in the same way for each
person, nor will He do things the same way every time. This is how God has been working in my life,
and it may be different for you. We can
be encouraged by the fact that whatever the situation is, we can still leave it
with Him and patiently wait His timing to work things out in our lives.
When God called
Samuel and he went to Eli, Eli didn’t tell him to stay up all night in
prayer. He told him to ‘lie down’ just
as he had been doing. “He coached Samuel in a way of readiness to
respond instead of a striving urgency to entreat…. It comes down to seven words
in the English language…. ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ These words do not initiate the conversation. They come in response to it.”[2] This is God’s longing for each one of us and
is the way to blessing, peace and loving the Lord joyfully.
Post Script
These three
lessons are closely linked with prayer.
Prayer is our acknowledgement that we need help, that we can’t do it
ourselves. It is saying, “I can’t but
you can!” It is a step of faith and a
humbling of ourselves in submission to the Lord. It is through prayer that God can speak into our
hearts as we meditate on His Word. As we
pray we allow God to bring our wills more in tune with His. However, praying can be difficult. Our first prayer request can be that God will
give us a greater desire for Him in prayer.
Thomas Merton prayed, “MY LORD GOD, I have no idea
where I am going. I do not see the road
ahead of me…. and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean
that I am actually doing so. But I
believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I
am doing. I hope that I will never do
anything apart from that desire. And I
know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know
nothing about it.”[3]
As our relationship
with the Lord deepens, we will see a transformation in how we respond to the
circumstances that we are in and our trust and faith in God will grow.
[1] Mags Duggan, God among the Ruins, p.78.
[2] J.D.Walt, Called:?! Following a Future Filled with the
Possible (Kindle, Locations 459-469)
[3] Quoted in J.D.Walt, Called:?! Following a Future Filled with the
Possible (Kindle, Locations 319-322)
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