Looking for answers to your problems? Well guess What? We don’t always have to be in control. We don’t always have to know the answer to every problem. We don’t always have to be the leader. What a relief it is to allow someone else to lead–someone we TRUST– and then, with confidence, follow them to the greatest surprises.
The most secure place to put our trust is in God. And when we trust in Him, He will surprise us. When we let go, like a small child standing on the pool’s edge, and jump into our Father’s arms; he will not only catch us, he will teach us to swim.
God’s surprises may come as answers to a worry we have, and given to us through another person. The person may be someone, who in our narrow-mindedness, we may have judged too severely by our first impression (how they dress, how attractive they are, how they speak, smell, or walk.) We see only someone who is different from our image of what we think a person should be. And sometimes, we pompously see someone who’s ‘in our way.’ And so, we circumvent them, and never get to know the answer or surprise God had in mind to give us through them.
If we see only ourselves as worthy enough to be in control. If we try to do everything on our own. If we don’t accept God’s presence in people at all, then how can we take advantage of the grace He offers when we need it most? And we will surely need it!
In our life journey, the innocence we were born with will leave us. We will be broken in some way. There may have already been a time in your life when everything changed and life seemed in ruins. Of course, none of us wish for brokenness, but all of us will face suffering. What sort of action will we take when that happens? We might moan and groan about the trouble that has befallen us. We might strike out at others. We might wound ourselves up, like a tight ball of yarn, wishing the world would go away and leave us wadded up in our misery.
But if we recognize God’s grace and allow it to unwind inside us, our inner sight will change. We will make an attempt to understand how much God loves us, and when we understand that, we will see things differently. We will no longer be broken. We will be ‘put together’ and able to surrender our lives to Him. And follow Him.
And never should we forget that we may be the answer to what another human being needs. Seeing another’s divinity and honoring it is a sure way to express our own. We are, all of us, intended to be God’s expression of love in this world.
Our earthly lives are like jars of clay. They can be beautiful but they are fragile and easily shattered, many times by our own sins. And of course, our lives do not last forever. The genuine treasure of this life is that it continues beyond the container of our bodies. It is not temporary, but eternal.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.–Corinthians 4:17-18
Translating a World on the Edge 