I have spent several weeks
thinking about that question.
For me, that is one of those
ambiguous questions that’s hard to wrap a clear answer around.
In light of my daily struggle
with the flesh, abandoning myself to God seems to be the answer that will allow
me to live freely by his grace. But what
does that look like? Let me put a picture in your mind to help you understand
this more clearly.
Picture yourself in a one man
kayak. You are on the Colorado River, in
some of the fiercest currents. Today,
you have decided that you will paddle upstream against some of the strongest
class 4 and class 5 rapids. You drop
your kayak in the river at a relatively tranquil location and begin to
paddle. But it’s only a matter of feet
before the currents pickup speed as the river narrows and you begin to slow
your pace.
The farther upstream you paddle,
the quicker the current gets and the harder it pushes against you. In order to keep moving forward, you must
paddle harder and harder. Before long
the kayak comes to a standstill, yet you are paddling ferociously.
The current becomes too strong
for you, no matter how hard you paddle, you cannot make it upstream any
further. But you remain persistent. 10, 15 minutes later, fatigue is setting in,
while the river remains relentless.
You back muscles are on fire,
your brow is dripping in sweat, and the mental anguish of doing all of this
work and getting nowhere is tormenting your mind.
After a long fight with the
current, your exhaustion settles in and you know you are doomed to fail. At this point you come up with another
plan. You decide to abandon yourself to
the raging power of the river. In order
to enjoy the river and the power of the currents, you turn your kayak downstream
and take off. Now the power of the
current is doing all the work. Your
exhaustion, your energy level no longer affects the distance you cover, rather
now all you have to do is cooperate with the currents by helping steer through
the river, dodging obstacles along the way.
Before long the first mile is
down, and your energy is slowly being restored.
Another mile passes and you are once again enjoying the river, instead
of fighting against it. The currents of the river are now your greatest ally
and not your biggest enemy. The only
thing you had to do was have a change of mind and decide to go with “the flow”.
Abandoning yourself to God looks
very similar to this. In life, you may be
tempted to fight your struggles on your own, but this is about as effective as
paddling upstream against the raging Colorado.
Rather Scripture says, 5 Trust in the Lord with all
your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
When we abandon
our self to God, we learn to trust in his understanding, seeking His ways for
our life. In so doing, he directs our
paths, he guides us through rough waters, and he empowers us to find victory
over our toughest struggles.
If you have been
fighting against your flesh, you know how tiring that can be without the Lord’s
help. You know because you have failure
after failure after failure and before long the thought creeps in that says, “Why
try any longer, I am destined to fail.”
I can
confidently tell you that you will not lose!
But, you will need to turn your kayak around and start going with the
flow of Christ. You will need to turn
and repent of our sin and give your sin over to the demolishing power of Christ
that lives inside of you. You will need
to call out to him prayerfully and through the reading of his word, begin to
lean on his understanding, and then he will direct your paths.
God is at work
all around you, the question is, will you fight against him or will you allow
him to direct your paths?
