This past year has been nothing short of traumatic for me emotionally, academically, spiritually, and relationally. Of all things that could have gone wrong, a solid 90% of it did. I struggled in my classes like I had never before and marked a historical event in my life: my lowest gpa to date. I started liking a guy friend of mine, which is always a mess in and of itself. I had an emotional break down about my future career plans because of a slight potential that it might not go as I had planned. An awful and ridiculous rumor was started by none other than my own church friend. I destroyed my eating disciplines. Lastly, I lost my church community due to this series of unfortunate events. Everything really did go wrong.
“‘Ah stubborn children,’ declares the Lord, who carry out a plan but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” Isaiah 30:1
Yet I had never been so broken and humbled as I had been this year. I didn’t realize my ego could hit rock bottom harder than it had in the past. The expectations, worries, troubles, hurts, hate, ego, and pride had consumed me whole, consumed me so much that I became so oblivious to the mere existence of God. My worries were mine to have, my troubles were mine to fix, my hurts were mine to deal, my ego and pride were mine to keep, and my successes were mine to praise. There was nothing wrong with me believing that because I had convinced myself that God was not a pragmatic and present God. The problems of the reality were too real for me to wait around and hope that God would fix it, and I was too much of a realist to put faith into a Being that was so hard to grasp, so intangible and abstract. I wanted a someone I could touch, feel, smell, and hear that would be able to solve my physicals problems on hand.
However, and perhaps unsurprisingly, doubts of God’s existence were not really the root of the problem I was having. Now that I reflected, and have the leisure and the peace of mind to seek God in my current season, God has shown me that he is present and pragmatic. A being so far from our touch and that might only exist in our own heads because humans needed some omnipotent figure to ease ourselves of the fear of what we cannot discover with science… The idea of such a God seemed only to be a fantasy because I couldn’t have faith in his actual existence and how he could impact our lives. I couldn’t even stop myself from doubting the existence of a God, so to take it further and believe that this God was omnipotent and had the power to change our situations, outcomes, and lives was too hard to believe. It was not practical, God was not practical. However, here I am, having lived the past 21 years of my life relying on this God I suddenly couldn’t seem to believe in. This is still unclear to why I continue to rely on a God I doubt, but having gone through the hardest year of my life, I see that my idea and God’s idea of practical and good are different and His standards are absolute and right; that is what I have not made peace with till now. We sometimes think He doesn’t know what is really good for us because we view His actions and words in the light of our agenda and our plan. In His perfect plan for us, all that He does has a greater purpose, serves our best interests, and is practical and true in every way.
- God gave us the free will to make choices for ourselves. To work hard or to not, to believe or to not, to hate or to not. Given this free will, God has allowed for us to uniquely shape our own lives, yet asks that we surrender our lives to Him once we believe.
- He gives us no struggle that we cannot handle (1 Corinthians 10:13-14). He, who knows all and does all, makes sure to give us only what we can handle. “What we can handle” meaning the struggles that we are able to overcome with God’s help and helpers.
- He remains an absolute and intangible so that we may learn to love him completely in faith: His ultimate goal and agenda. By engaging in the difficult questions of what it means to be human and live on the earth, this is actually a very important way we work towards the upward goal (Philippians 3:14).
“And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” Exodus 16:7
I always believed that I had to take ownership in everything I was, am and will be. I didn’t realize that taking everything under my responsibility was such a burden, having all this control even over my own life was so stressful. That’s the beautiful thing about the gospel. We have a Creator who asks us to give up control to Him. We are created with the longing to seek out something or someone to depend on for support, to take the load off of our shoulders. For me, I could never trust God to lead me where I wanted to be if I were to hand over the control of my life, because I believed that God was not present and practical. I, in my practicality, wanted a successful job, lots of money, good grades, etc., like many college students do. I was always afraid that God never considered what I wanted when executing his plans, that he would make my life whatever He wanted it to be if I gave him control. For some, it’s the bitter roots of hatred and doubt from the struggles he gives us; for others it’s the belief that our decisions and hard work aren’t ever enough. The truth is that, if we do give up control of our life to God, he may or may not use it to fulfill his needs. We need not fear of him. Because He is a God who loves, knows, and cares for what we want.
“Why do you call me good?” Luke 18:19
My biggest fear of surrendering all to God was that I would no longer have a say in what I wanted with life, but I know that is wrong. When I surrender myself and my life to God, He leads me to a path that I know is good for me. Many different things deter us from giving ourselves to Him, but I now trust that God is a caring and practical God. He gives me peace to offer the control of my life to Him.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7