BLOG - "There was much yet to learn, but mercifully there were few habits or memories of evil to erase. The Holy Spirit had … a free field in his heart.
'And at seventeen years of age, all life was yet before him in which to spend and be spent for the Lord he loved.
"He longed for some work to do for God, some service that might prove his gratitude, some suffering even. A leisure afternoon gave opportunity for prayer, and with this desire filling his heart he went up to his room to be alone with God. And there in a special way the Lord met him.” - J. Hudson Taylor
If Jonah had trusted God from the start, he would not have gone through the things he did. Jonah did not have to experience the pain; he could have avoided it all.
It took a while
God wanted him to go north and Jonah wanted to go south. It took a while, but eventually Jonah changed and was heading toward north, as God wanted him to.
Now imagine you are in the boat with God. God is going one way and you going the other way. It is a disaster waiting to happen. The process is bound to take longer, probably hurt a lot more too.
So how do we get in the same boat as God? Better yet, how do we stay there? By totally surrendering, we can get to a place of stopping pulling and simply following God.
If I am honest, that does not sound nice at all. We still have that thing inside of us, screaming for attention and it is called flesh.
Yes, our flesh will always be there until we are face to face with God, but until then we will always have to surrender our flesh.
Battle between flesh and spirit
A loved one once told me to see it as two dogs. A battle between flesh and spirit, the one you feed will get stronger. It is difficult, I know. But you have to surrender your flesh; it is not easy, but you have the authority and most importantly you need to remember it is a choice to surrender flesh.
I promise you: the more you do it the more you will see the fruit of your labour.
Surrendering is a good thing because we know God’s love for us, therefore we can trust Him in it.
Yup, there is that word again; told you it is needed everywhere. We trust God that He wants the best for us and will do nothing that will hurt us. Why do we know this? Because of His character. Therefore, we surrender our ways, our will, so that we can position ourselves in the direction God wants us to be.
To stay in that position, we need to constantly surrender, constantly trust. The moment we allow ourselves to be led by our own will, we remove ourselves from the boat – the will of God, a safe place.
No safe place
Now we are outside of the boat, which means no safe place; we no longer have our eyes on God and what His will is.
So, what does that make us? An easy target for the enemy. The moment we allow ourselves to focus on our own will and interests, we lose focus of God entirely.
So, we have no protection; we are creating our own way (like Jonah), which feeds our flesh. That makes us more vulnerable to the enemy.
We feel unsure because we have no stability, as we had in the boat. We make foolish decisions because we do not have the wisdom that we had in the boat.
So, at the end of the day we are running in circles – with no purpose whatsoever – because we knew we had a purpose when we were in the boat. Now we have no destination because no one is leading us. We are just running around after our own flesh.
Created to be loved
We humans need to feel we have a purpose; we are created to be loved and feel wanted.
Because we are like this, we grab anything that will make us feel secure, wanted and important. And here is the funniest thing, everything we want is in the boat.
Everything we need is in the boat. The moment we focus on our flesh, our eyes are off God. When this happens, the boat is not functioning properly. We need to align ourselves with the will of God; we need to trust God that His will is better than our own, that everything we need is in the boat.
By staying, we need to surrender, which means to sacrifice. We need to resist our flesh, which wants to get us out of the boat. We need to trust God that His ways are better (Isaiah 55:8-13).
Prayer
Father, I ask that You will help me trust You, to know that Your ways are far better than mine. Father help me surrender to Your will. I give up control of the boat and position myself in the direction You want me to take. Take control of my boat and show me the way. Father help me surrender, for it is so easy for us to take control of the boat and think our ways are best. Guide me where you want me to go. I Love you.
Song for the week: Simplicity by Rend Collective
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