(submitted by Chuck Price)
“For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
Phil 2:13 NAS
The Christian life is a journey of following Christ. As we journey with the Lord we are continually learning and growing and there are numerous lessons that He teaches us along the way. One of the most important lessons that I have learned is that God is the one in charge of our growth which means:
• He chooses the lessons
• He chooses the methods
• He chooses the timing
I don’t know that I always like that so much. Many times the lesson that God selected was not the one that I thought I should have been learning at the moment. I would also quite often pick different ways to receive those lessons. And I would almost always prefer different timing.
“Not now Lord, I am too busy and I have too much to do and besides that I am too young to deal with this now. Particularly since I am already dealing with Rheumatoid Arthritis which is not yet under control! ” That was part of how I felt last summer when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
But then I remembered it was God who chooses the lessons, methods, and timing to grow my faith. I was in the center of His will and I could trust Him even if it did rearrange what I already had concluded should be my schedule and priorities.
The principle is: God is the one who causes the growth in my life and He uses the laboratory of circumstances to produce that growth. It has been a great season of growth as I have seen the Lord in new ways and experienced the ministry of a caring and loving church family that has taught me even further lessons about God’s grace. And I am reminded of Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
You could have stopped after your opening 3 points for me! He chooses the method and timing are the 2 that often hang me up...maybe it's my false sense of being in control or my desire to have my image not hurt my his timing or purifying.
Thanks for sharing Chuck
I echo Dan's thoughts on how those three points hit home. Wow! As we trust God to lead us and grow us in the ways He knows are best for us, we surrender our rights to determine the methods and timing. It is up to God to determine how He wants to teach us and it is in His timing, not ours. It seems easier to yield to His lessons because He knows what we need to be taught better than we do. But in our humanness, we want a voice to vote on how He teaches us or how long or when. You put words to it for me to see where I struggle to surrender, or what the heart of the struggle in surrender is. Do I really trust God knows best for me if I don't like His method or His timing, or I want to resist Him?
Thank you for getting me thinking on this key part of surrender.
Post a Comment