It seems silly to say it like that, because something in our nature when faced with the blatant irreverent setting of ourselves over God knows this to be ridiculous and shrink away from it. But there something within us that longs to believe it still, because we suffer from the same sin that caused Lucifer to fall, the desire to be our own god, and we have all each fallen for the same lie that tripped up Adam and Ever, that we will know and therefore be like gods ourselves.
I determine my own fate with my free will! We declare this and put limits on the power of God over our life. But here's the rub. If you are a Christian, you got to be that by free will. You chose to say yes to the call to come to God. But the reason why we are told to count the cost is that once we surrender our will, it's surrendered. We are no longer our own, but were paid for with a costly price. The reason that He can assure us that He will accomplish what He started in each and every one of us is that each and every one of us are powerless to stop Him. He is sovereign. He has the power. Oh how we hate that idea, to be powerless, and yet we are. We give up our right to choose our will over His at the cross. We may want to take it back, we may even try, but we can't because we don't have the right or the power anymore.
Fifteen years ago I made a choice and entered into a plea bargain with the State of Texas. I plead guilty to a crime in exchange for knowing my fate rather than going to trial where I could end up in a better situation or a much worse one depending on the whims of the jury. I was in control to determine my fate. I did. I accepted the deal, and by doing so gave up my right to appeal. Now, the truth is that I was high when I made the deal and probably shouldn't have been allowed to make an irrevocable decision under those circumstances, so there were times during my incarceration when I regretted it and got angry over it. But all my regret and anger did was make my life even more miserable. It didn't change anything. I had surrendered my rights to the state, and wanting to take them back would never open those doors.
Part of me really hates to use the analogy of prison to explain this, since becoming God's child sets us free, but the analogy hold true. Once we truly enter into covenant with God, we give up our right to appeal, to change our mind. We can want to, we can try, we can play the prodigal and run, but all we are doing is making ourselves miserable fighting against the inevitable change happening in our lives. It's in the absolute surrender that life becomes worth living, because we are free from the struggle, we are free to enjoy the blessings and benefits of having God as our Sovereign Lord and Daddy. Because the difference between prison and God is prison seeks to punish and God wants to give us every good thing and fill us with joy, peace and love. Will you give up your rights for perfect peace, joy and love? People do it every day for the illusion of that. We look to drugs, drink, sex, money, power and so many other things that promise peace, joy and love but can't deliver the real thing, at a core level, for any length of time. We become slaves and live in bondage to those con artists. But God delivers the real thing and permanently. And with His power over our will He simply guides us to and through that which makes us more perfectly us, content and satisfied.
We can't take back our will, and to try only makes life hard. but in surrendering the fight we find out that God's will for us actually feels, at the core of our spirit, like what our will would have been all along had we realized how fulfilling and wonderful it is to do His will. It is only in giving up or will to God's, then not trying to take it back that we can discover the joy of knowing an doing exactly what we want to do, which turned out to be His will all along. So if you want to be happy, stop trying to win the fight you can never win, stop trying to convince yourself that the counterfeit which has never been enough is somehow better than God's plan, and let His will squash your will and then lead you to your inner and better desires of your heart of hearts.
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