Allowing God to be God

The problem with man is that he always wants to be in control of his life.  Man wants to live according to what is right in his eyes and does not appreciate it when anyone tells him that he is wrong.  Commonly what he sees as right is what the majority has deemed RIGHT.  I have the privilege of working is schools and asking young people questions that expose their understanding of who God is and their view of morality.  I have met some “smart” young people who gave me “smart” answers that seem to justify their moral decay, but in the end; they all agree that their behaviour is immoral and sinful before God.  The problem is not so much that they are addicted to these things, but the willingness to stop doing it.  The reason it is hard is because stopping means accepting that there is a superior, unseen being whom they need to trust; which ultimately means not being in control of their lives.  I thought that this was interesting because I realized that one can be “saved/born again” but still have part control of their lives.  Living with God is about allowing him to be God in your life so that you can be who you truly are. I know that it is not as easy as I say it, but it should happen if we are to live a life of abundance with God.  We need to trade in something small (our control) for something bigger than us (life in abundance) to superior being who cannot be wrong. 

My team and I were having devotions and we had a time of silence before God to hear what he is saying to us about the scripture that we had just read.  We had read Galatians 5 which speaks about the battle between the spirit of God and our sinful nature. When you look at the sinful nature, you find that those are the things that are easy to do and do not require much thought.  These are things that we do impulsively and give us sensual pleasure. A juxtapose of the spirit and the flesh exposes that the spirit man fulfils the inner man (content) and the sinful nature satisfies the flesh (container).  Life is far deeper than the physical and for that reason; a life led by the sinful nature is not sustainable.  We always want to do what we want to do and often morality or God’s laws are like a rude intrusion in our lives.  As I was sitting there silently before the Lord, he said: “Forget the little off ramps of your sinful nature, stay on the highway of righteousness and I assure you of this: you are headed towards a glorious destiny.”  Now this hit me hard because of the last sentence which mentions DESTINY.  Often when we do these things that we want to do, we never think of the consequences.  If staying on the highway of righteousness leads me to a glorious destiny, it means that the off-ramps of the sinful nature will lead me to the opposite of that.  Deep inside every human being is a desire to reach the glorious destiny but the there is a discrepancy in this desire and their behaviour.  To reach the glorious destiny, you need to stay on the highway of righteousness.  I then asked God: “what if I get stuck?” to which he responded: “it is better for you to be stuck on the highway of righteousness because I you will be closer to me. If you are on the off-ramps; you will not get sustainable help because it will not be from me.” He then closed it off by saying something that he knew that I struggle with, and this is what he said: “If someone passes you at top speed, do not worry about keeping up with them because you do not know what my plan is for his/her life.” 

Part of walking with God and allowing him to be God in your life consists of being willing to do things that do not make sense to your fickle mind.  There are things that will not make sense to you that he will ask you to do.  It did not make sense for the disciples that he could multiply the five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand hungry souls.  It did not make sense for Noah to build an ark that will accommodate all living creatures.  It did not make sense that Jesus will rise from the dead after 3 days.  It did not make sense that Sarah would have a son in her 90’s. It did not make sense that David would kill Goliath with a slingshot and a stone.  It did not make sense that Samson would slay 1000 soldiers with a jawbone of a donkey.  It did not make sense to Martha to move that stone from Lazarus’ grave.  It did not make sense for Moses to use the rod to part the red sea.  Above all, it did not make sense (to me at least) why a holy God would care so much about a sinful man like me.  God loves us and he wants the best for us, if only we would submit our will to him so that he can do as he pleases with our lives. 

There is a monkey trap that is used all around the world to capture monkeys. It is a staked container with a hole cut into it just wide enough for the monkey to stick its empty hand into it.  The container is baited with something attractive to the monkey.   The monkey reaches for the bait and then will not release the bait and cannot pull its hand out of the container with the bait in its hand.  It is then captured.  Is this not how we are sometimes? We are baited with sensual pleasure that make us feel nice, so nice that we are not willing to let them go for the freedom that is in Christ Jesus.  If we let the sensual pleasure go, the trap can no longer capture us, we are free and I am so sure that all of you want freedom. 

God Bless and thanx for reading.