Unexpected blessing found in surrender

How do you respond when you experience something that makes you feel uncomfortable, not the one in control, and vulnerable? How do you respond when the situation is divinely orchestrated and yet you’ve been taught all of your life that this kind of scenario doesn’t happen anymore, that God doesn’t work this way anymore, that the gift God wants to give you doesn’t exist anymore - that it’s no longer necessary?

Are you scared? Leery? Sceptical? Doubting? How long do you argue with God about the legitimacy of it? How much time do you spend in the Word seeking to know what God’s heart truly is, even if it means changing your position on it? How much time do you spend seeking Godly counsel on it? How much time do you spend with Him, not arguing but asking? When do you finally yield and accept the gift He’s offering? This gift was given to strengthen your faith in Him and His ability and to be used to build up the Church.

I can tell you from personal experience that one major enemy to surrender in this kind of situation is fear. There is a fear of not being the one in control but allowing the Spirit of God to be that one in control. There is a fear of not always understanding what’s going on or what’s being said. There is a fear of not being able to explain it. There is a fear of man and what they will think of this new reality in your life and how they will respond to you, especially those who grew up trained to believe the same way you were.

I am an analytical thinker (code for control freak and worrier). I like to know what’s going on and I like to be able to explain it. I like to be able to confine what I’m experiencing to words on a page or to put it in a box and slap  a label on it so that I can appropriately manipulate the circumstances to be the way I want them to be. If I can explain it then I can control it (or so I think). The only trouble with this is you can’t put God in a box, and you cannot define or explain Him. His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours (see Isaiah 55:8-9). His ways are hidden from us (Ecc. 3:11).  They are beyond our understanding (Romans 11:33-36). A friend wisely told me that if you can confine God to a textbook then he is no longer God. 

 The Lord has recently given me a gift whose purpose is to be the building up of the saints and my own personal edification. Up until a year ago I would’ve never expected or anticipated that He would do this in my life or that this gift was still active in my immediate context. But He is the source of the gift. I know, in part, the purpose for which I have been given it. How He chooses to flesh that out over the course of the rest of my life, only He knows. He can be trusted and He knows exactly what He’s doing. I take incredible comfort in knowing that God has orchestrated these circumstances and blessings in my life to draw me closer to Him - to show me Himself. He is my prize, my highest good. He is showing me Himself and His worth in the midst of this blessing. Surrender is so hard but it yields such incredible joy.