I was originally going to write about Bryce's topic, Christ making cottages into palaces, but I decided to change my quote and write about another aspect of the book that impacted me. This quote comes from the 12th chapter called Faith. It says:
I know the words 'leave it to God' can be misunderstood, but they must stay for the moment. The sense in which a Christian leaves it to God is that he puts all his trust in Christ: trusts that Christ will somehow share with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His birth to His crucifixion: that Christ will make the man more like Himself and, in a sense, make good his deficiencies...handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying. To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you (147-148).
This quote, as long as it is, really impacted me because I have an especially hard time truly trusting Christ in the sense that I know that God has a plan for me, and I trust Him that it is the best plan since He knows me more than I know myself, but I still find it hard to not worry at all and give it all to Him. It is so reassuring, knowing that I don't need to worry, yet I still get caught up and spend so much unnecessary time stressing over little things.
My doubtful thoughts and lack of faith prevent me from being able to let go and live my life out for Christ in the way I wish I could and the way that Lewis describes in this quote-right now, especially, with all the decisions I must make about college and my future. Even the fact that I sometimes become "fed up" with the things of this world and wish God could just magically make everything come together without me having to work hard at it. Take the SAT's for example, sometimes I wonder if I really need to spend all this time studying and stressing out over a little test that probably won't even matter where I am aiming to apply to. I just wish I could skip the seemingly unimportant/worldly things in life, but I know I should do all things to the glory of God, and not man. Even so, it is hard to remember.
It is not only hard to remember, but hard to do. The quote says that we must try to do what he says. Personally, I find it very difficult to discern what God wants me to do and what I am telling myself I would prefer. Sometimes I don't know the difference between the two and get caught up in technicalities and details. Or even some days may not have had the best start and I feel ashamed for not responding in a way that's glorifying to God, and that itself makes me angry and disappointed in myself for not representing Christ accurately (as we discussed in UTT). This is one area I feel especially susceptible to the devil's lies and one area of weakness in my life. I pray that God will strengthen me and give me confidence and faith the go all in for Jesus and trust Him with every aspect of my life! And I'm excited to see the end result. I cannot even begin to believe I will be off to college in about a year! One day I'll get to look back on this with a smile and know that God really did have the best plan for me in store.
This was a great quote Hanna! I feel like a lot of people our age struggle with this. We as Christians have been told time and time again that "God has a plan for us", and we only realize as we grow up that we need to submit everything to that plan, and therein lies the struggle. We need God to help us to submit.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being so honest, Hanna! It really means a lot! :)
Hanna! I totally know how you feel! It is so hard to give it all up to God. Especially when it comes to our futures. At least for me, it's hard because I so want to be in control of where I go to college, and what I do as a career, but ultimately- that's something that is up to God. This is such a great quote, and such a great reminder for us all! :)
ReplyDeleteI used to write in my journals, "Hey! Future Greta! Does it all work out??"
ReplyDeleteInevitably, Future Greta (once she's made it to Present Greta) responds, "Yep."
It will. :) Even if that looks different than how you had originally envisioned things: it will all work out.
It's important to remember that we are representatives of Christ and to weigh our actions accordingly, and it's so good that you're thinking about that. Still, some of the brightest lights for Christ, I think, are people who are honest about the ways that they've failed. So don't worry dear: we don't have to be perfect. We simply need to be honest about our need for grace and our desire for transformation.
Love!
15/15
I totally agree with you Hanna! I find it so hard to trust God, even though i really do know that he has a plan for me and stuff. Like, what if the plan isn't what I wanted? I know it sounds cliche, like, it's God's plan, it has to be good, but you know? It's just hard.
ReplyDeleteI find myself not stressing enough over some things that I should be, and then stressing too much over little things... I think I need some more prayer haha
I wonder if even when i'm doing the plan that God had for me, if i'll know that that is what he wanted me to do... I guess his plan for us isn't over until were done with this world. hm..
I definitely agree with you about how hard it can be to discern what exactly works towards God's plan for your life and what doesn't. Maybe we're not supposed to understand all of the aspects that works towards that though, like how a little kid doesn't need to know exactly how his or her parents are going to send the child to college. I can't imagine God's plan is easily frustrated by our daily mistakes. Perhaps we ought to spend more time focusing on how we are going to achieve success through Him rather than be upset by our shortcomings. We don't have a choice: we are going to fail. But we do get to make a daily choice of whether or not we're going to succeed.
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