People like to have their own way, and often think that if they surrender to God they can’t have their own way anymore. However, when we have chosen God’s will as our will, we always have our own way when God has his way. Some are afraid to submit to God’s will lest they should have to give up their own cherished plans or ambitions; lest they should not be able to choose for themselves. But we can always choose for ourselves if we choose what is best, for God’s will is that which is best. If we don’t choose God’s will, but choose some other way, we’re choosing less than the best for ourselves. Therefore, we are robbing ourselves of that which is best for us, and we thereby lose the joy and peace that are the fruits of choosing his will.

Some fear to take God’s will, because they distrust God’s fidelity to them, and feel that they can choose best for themselves. This is doubting God’s wisdom and love, for God is wiser than we---his tender love for us will cause him to choose what is best for us, just as a loving parent will choose for his child that which is best for it. We must submit to God in faith. A submission that is full of doubts concerning God’s faithfulness and love is always a hesitating submission, and that very hesitation robs it of the joyfulness that comes from confident, trusting submission.

When we are fully submitted, he sometimes lets us choose our own course. The author has had a number of such experiences, one of which will be mentioned. There was a time when two courses were open, and a choice must be made between the two. To follow either would be doing the Lord’s service, but which would please the Lord to follow was not clear, though earnest prayer was made to know the will of the Lord. For a time there seemed to be no answer. Then one day God said, “You can do just as you choose; you can go ahead as you are or you can take up the other line of work.” This proved a great source of comfort and inspiration to my soul. To feel that God saw in me sincerity enough to do his will to let me choose for myself what sort of work I should do, inspired my heart to faithfulness and to devotion to him, as perhaps nothing else could have done.

In order for God to allow us the privilege of choosing for ourselves in such matters, the will must be wholly surrendered to his will. But what a blessed sense of soul-rest and what enriching of the nature come through this self-surrender! All the blessedness of which we are capable comes to us through the channel of the submitted will, but any drawing back from God’s will, closes the channel and robs us of the blessedness that he would otherwise send.
[ The End ]