Not My Will

Have I mentioned that God has been leading me to make some changes in my life lately?! I'll be the first to tell you that I didn't really want to hear most of the things that God has been telling me to do in my life, and I haven't been very cooperative. You can probably guess that God's persistence won out over my stubbornness! A quote that comes to my mind quite often these days is "God won't ask you to do more than you can handle, but He may push you to your limits!". I think it's safe to say that God has been pushing me to my limits a lot over the last several months - but what a privilege it is to be pushed by God!

One of the many things I'm learning is that if I want to live a life walking securely with the Lord, I have to be willing to say, "Not my will, but Your will be done, Lord!" At first thought, that doesn't seem too difficult, does it? But let's face it... we are human, and we form attachments to our plans and desires, and as much as we may want to give those over to God, it can still be very emotional and tough to do. I have definitely found this to be true with some of the changes I've been needing to make in my life, and quite frankly it was very tough for me and I felt a lot of loss at the beginning. But when I decided to surrender my dreams and plans to Him, He took away my desire for those things, and replaced my desire for things the things that He has planned for me. As long as I continued pursuing dreams that were not from God, He would not bless those, and I would be forever frustrated. Even if the dreams and desires in my heart are from Him, I still need to surrender them to Him - God wants me to strive to be close to Him, not striving to reach my own selfish dreams. He wants me to quit trying to make those dreams happen in my own strength - He wants (and requires) me to trust Him to make them happen through me. What a world of difference! What a relief it is, and how exciting it is, to know that God is in control, and my only job is to trust Him completely!

So I ask myself (and encourage you to ask yourself), "What am I holding on to that I need to surrender to God?", "Am I settling for 'good' when God has something 'great' planned for me?" I have no idea where God is leading me! But I do know that I want to be obedient to Him, and seek daily to stay in the center of His will. And by the way, my goal is not to discover what God's will is for my life; my goal is to seek to discover what God's will is, and listen for where He wants me to fit in to that plan.

I'm doing my best to let go of my goals and dreams and start holding on to Him - I have no doubts that by me letting go of the things I long for, God will bring it back to me in ways so much more wonderful that I can even imagine!

I pray that you, too, are seeking only to hold on to God, to give up your will and be obedient to His will, and that you open yourself up to changes (probably some tough changes!) and allow Him to bless you beyond your wildest dreams!