Am I more determined to navigate my own course than leaving it to Him?
I read something similar to this the other day, and it gave me pause. After careful consideration, I’d have to say a lot of times…yes, or maybe even most times. I know, that shouldn’t be the case. I should be relying on God to steer me through life’s happenings instead of trying to pilot my own course and trying to control the outcomes for myself and others. When I’m piloting the course and trying to control the outcomes, which by-the-way I can’t do anyhow, that means I have a trust problem.
If I’m navigating my own course, or some might say trying anxiously to control, it means I do not trust Him. Plain and simple. Wait! No, I do trust Him, but… We either trust Him or we don’t. Granted, there is a disconnect sometimes between our minds and our hearts, sometimes we don’t always line up, remember the hind’s feet? It is perilous when our back feet (heart and mind) don’t land in the front feet (soul and strength) steps? We risk falling on the treacherous terrain.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:27
Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Hope. Faith. Whatever you want to call it, we cannot stumble through life with half-trust, picking and choosing the situations that God is capable of handling and those that we must handle for Him. This creates so many bad decisions on our part.
Trust is a tricky thing though. We may feel it with our minds but don’t know it with our hearts. Or, we may feel it with our hearts, but don’t know it in our minds. Trust is getting it all to line up and that’s a process.
If I am more determined to navigate my own course, my life will be a constant battle, kind of like a Pushmi-Pullyu. My head and my heart are connected to one body but constantly battling for control. Visualize that. Only when we give up control are we given freedom from the tug of war. Freedom to trust. Freedom to allow Him to navigate our lives. If we are constantly trying to control the outcomes of life, we will never have freedom.
When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was engulfed by the waves; but Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
“You of little faith,” Jesus replied, “why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was perfectly calm.
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!”
Matthew 8:23:27
Do we not think that the One that controls the waters of the earth cannot control the seas of our lives? We are so like the Disciples charting our own course and then being engulfed by the waves. Here’s the thing I love about this passage. He rebuked the winds and the waves, but He did not rebuke the Disciples for their little faith! I can’t imagine that the Disciples were not trying to control their boat during this storm. I can’t imagine that they were not trying to navigate the waters, control the sails and bailing the water out of the boat. I can’t imagine that they didn’t wake Jesus until they had tried everything they knew to do and nothing was working. I can’t imagine that they didn’t wake Him as a last resort. Only when they saw they were not able to manage the crisis did they cry out to Him. I can relate!
And He answered.
Freedom comes when we cry out to Him. Our freedom comes when we trust Him enough to take control. It is a process. But just like the Disciples, we can breathe a sigh of relief when we see He is true to His promises and we can trust Him more.