Tag: Surrender

Relying On God More Than Ever

For years I’ve been such a control-freak and I’ve written about it openly in past blog posts. If our world has shown me anything lately it’s that I’m learning I have little control over much.

Sure I can control my choices, my attitude and my response, but apart from that I have no say.

But God.

He is fully prepared. All-knowing. Powerful. The perfecter of control.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, ‘For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’

The real truth is that ultimately God has and is in control over every single little detail and part of life, and I’m actually finding such peace in seeing that I have control over very few things. Trying to take control of “things” or areas of life is exhausting. The sobering part of this is that in realizing I have minimal control, it’s forcing me to rely heavily on Jesus — knowing, trusting and believing that He has got absolutely everything in His hands, and in His care and His perfect control.

I’ve had a lot of people tell me lately that they’re living in fear, and I (myself) just haven’t been. But I think it’s because I’ve been drawing my strength from the Lord by reading His word and through prayer and reading devotions. I’m certainly frustrated by the circumstances of our world but it’s not causing me fear or anxiety.

It may seem like God is dragging His feet during these times but scripture shows that God’s not worried about time. His “concern” is that we surrender and become obedient. It’s not our right to groan about His timing. He’s been faithful throughout Bible history, He has in the years since and will continue to.

When we become impatient regarding God’s timing we can hold onto these scriptures:

Psalm 90:4 ‘For you, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.’

Hebrews 13:8 ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.’

Romans 8:28 ‘And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.’

If there is change happening, it’s within us — God is simply unchanging and He is faithful.

For a recovering control-freak all of these scripture-truths are good news as I lean into my faith — trusting in God’s flawless plans more than ever.

May any changing happening be for the better, drawing us nearer to Him.

Living on His Plans

When people talk about how they can’t wait for life to return to “normal”, I mentally stand on the other side thinking: ‘but I’m not 100% okay with the old kind of normal, the pre-covid normal…What changes do I want to see made within my family for our “future normal”…What is it that I want to grasp as a spiritually beneficial takeaway from this unique time?’…Because I don’t want to revert back to my Alicia’s world, impatient, on the go self when things do return to “normal”…my true colors usually show up best with a well thought out detailed itinerary…that’s part of my control girl flaw.

I’m trying to figure out how to mesh this current lifestyle (the things I’ve learned during my coronavirus-downtime) with what’s to come when life eventually does return to “fast-paced normal”…and the idea of loosening my firm grip on ‘itinerary-style-planning’ definitely needs to be part of a wiser planning method for myself.

We’ve all seen firsthand now how things can dramatically change in a matter of day to day living.

I have to laugh in spite of myself — back in late February, before I even knew the word coronavirus existed, I had sat down at my kitchen table and counted through my calendar all the days that I had marked down to substitute teach, and there were many. And in my eyes I was seeing dollar signs and the amount of money that I’d be able to tuck into savings to put towards a trip our family has/had scheduled this summer. In the midst of counting sub days I literally thought of how foolish it seemed because subconsciously I knew something could come up and any of those days could be taken from me, none of them were necessarily ever guaranteed to stay locked in. Sure enough every single one of them was canceled out through the end of the school year due to the virus. Continue reading “Living on His Plans”

Surrendering Victoriously

IMG951306I recently finished teaching my little home-schooled boy a lesson in his history book regarding the Revolutionary War (1775-1781). Many battles took place during those years as our country fought the British in effort to gain independence from them.

It wasn’t until 1781 that victory came to the American people with the help of the French soldiers at Yorktown, Virginia when the British were trapped, and their General, Charles Cornwallis, agreed to surrender.

Imagine the excitement the Americans must have felt at that moment. The Declaration of Independence had been signed years prior and now the long and no doubt tiresome war would finally cease.

I think my son (if he would have lived during those years) would have humbly and nobly signed a 57th signature to that very important document. He’s also mentioned he would have fought right beside those brave Colonists, which comes as no surprise since he can often be spotted mimicking a combination of victory and defeat while acting out a war scene between an assortment of  Lego action figures.

As we studied this chapter on early American history my little “historian” thoroughly soaked it all in, which prompted me to take the discussion a bit further by challenging him on the topic of ‘surrender.’

While exploring the broad areas of surrender my boy voluntarily commented how a combination of Legos and electronics consumes much of his free-time and how he may need to consider “surrendering” some of that to something of more value and worthwhile.

I hadn’t really considered the many different ways surrender can take place until this point… Continue reading “Surrendering Victoriously”

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