FRIDAY’S THOUGHTS
The question before us is, will we be able to follow Jesus, regardless of what is happening in our lives? Can we continue to place our trust in him, or do we pull back when things are getting difficult? The whole idea of following him to the “enth” degree in the way that Abraham did, involves surrender, giving up control of our lives and turning over that control to Jesus.
That whole idea of surrender is hard for us to grasp, because we are taught that being strong is what we are supposed to do. But surrendering doesn’t mean being weak, surrendering strengthens you. When we surrender to Jesus, we place everything in his hands, and we trust him completely. That doesn’t make us weak, it makes us strong, because when we do that we share in His power.
And there are rewards for surrendering. When we surrender the load we carry to Jesus, we have someone helping us carry the burden. In Matthew 11, Jesus says: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” We may not always get our way, but we will receive the healing of our spirits that only his peace can bring. And we are blessed with the peace that knows He walks with us each step of the way.
I look forward to sharing your thoughts. If you have thoughts to share publicly, please leave a comment with this post. For personal thoughts, write me at pastorcq@quinnclan.net
Some of my favorite thoughts on this subject come from Emmet Fox. “The most wonderful thing in the world is the Will of God. The Will of God for you at the present moment is something glorious and beautiful, thrillingly interesting and joyous, and, in fact far beyond anything that you could possibly sit down and wish for with your conscious mind.”
“It is unfortunate that so many people seem to assume as a matter of course that the Will of God for them is likely to be something dull or burdensome, if not positively repulsive.”
“‘I suppose it is God’s will for me, so I must put up with it’, people say when talking about some condition that they hate. … All this is absolutely wrong. The Will of God for man is life, health, happiness, and true self expression”.
Surrender is much easier if I expect the Will of God to be something good and in fact something better than my own will.