The finals are finished and all the grades are submitted. I’m closing the book on this chapter of my college experience and turning to pages of a summer full of hard work and even harder play.
My brain has been filled to the brim with books of knowledge, but there is one thing completely unrelated to history or literature that I am taking away from this semester.
I have learned to let go of my own life and surrender it to God.
For a long time, my relationship with God was recognizing his magnificence and wanting to walk a Christian life but not being willing to let go of control. I wanted to be in charge of my life because I knew there would be a lot of sacrifices and a lot of uncertainty involved in handing it over to God. But, when we don’t surrender our life to God we are surrendering it to chaos.
There was a day a couple of months ago that I was coming home from studying. I was getting out of my car to go up to my apartment. I had stopped by Walmart on my way back to buy toilet paper and a few other essentials. I live on the third floor of my apartment complex, so every time I have things to take inside it is a mission to carry everything at once so that I don’t have to make another trip. That day was no different. I grabbed my purse, my laptop and my tea. I looked at the toilet paper and other Walmart bags sitting in the back seat. I thought to myself, “I really shouldn’t try to carry this much stuff.” Just then a gust of wind blew chills all over my skin. Not wanting to make the trek back down the stairs and back up to the apartment in the cold I added the toilet paper and the Walmart bags. Looking like a juggling act gone wrong items began slipping from my hands. The tea was first to go, and in reaction, the toilet paper and Walmart bags dropped from the other hand, so that I could catch the tea. One moment I thought I had control of everything and the next, it was all slipping.
It thought that it would be easier to be stubborn and carry everything at once. I wouldn’t have to be in the cold as long, I wouldn’t have to climb the stairs again, it wouldn’t take as much time and I could crash onto my bed sooner. There were so many advantages to just trying to figure out how to juggle it all. But, that’s not what happened. I spilled tea all over myself and most of what I was carrying (thank goodness not on my laptop). I dropped most of what I was carrying, had to clean it all up and ended up making two trips regardless. What a metaphor for what my walk with God had been (or hadn’t been). I thought that carrying everything on my own and doing it my way was the best way to do it, but all along I should have been aligning myself with God’s plan. When I finally decided to lay my life down for Jesus, it was remarkable the changes that came over me and my life. Chaos became clarity, uncertainty became peace and tangled threads became a purpose. I could write a whole article alone glorifying God for the ways he has moved in my life and showed up since I put my faith in him (I will, soon).
I give myself two reminders daily:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
--John 12:24
“When God’s in it… it flows. When the flesh is in it…it’s forced. If He’s in it it’s remarkable how approval will be granted, how a growing interest will percolate, and how the timing will fall right into place. It will come together almost in spite of you.”
--Charles R. Swindoll
