The Surrender I
As I reflect back on my days as a young girl, I am amazed at where I found my inspiration from. I grew up in an urban town, made up mostly of minorities who looked much like I did. Words like inspiration; dreams; goals; no, they were not words that I heard too often. In all due respect to my parents, never once did we speak about my future, have talks about life after high school, my parents didn’t even know that I had applied and was accepted to college until about a month before I was scheduled to head off. I said all that to say, where you come from can only dictate where you are going if you allow it to. Now on to “The Surrender”….
Wish I could get right to it, but the truth of the matter is that it has been a journey. Cheers to all of the men and woman who immediately said yes to God’s will, who decided that his way was far better than their own early on. You see, I am a planner; I had a plan, a great plan. So why in the world do I need anyone, would I risk anyone coming to mess that up? I dreamed of a beautiful family, a white picket fence, and successful career for my husband while I stayed home with our perfectly imperfect children. However something happened.
During a 40 day fast that I was on with my husband God shared a part of his purpose for my life. I want you to become a Christian counselor God said, ok, great, I thought! That isn’t bad, I can roll with that. But then I did my research, wait I have to go back to get my master’s degree! After that degree I have to work for two whole years before I am evenly fully licensed?? Oh God, that is too much, you should have said that during my undergraduate years in school. Maybe I could have found a 5 year program or something that could have worked out better….maybe I would have finished school before I had my children. There is no way that I can go back to school now. Those are some of the things that crossed my mind. I mean at this point I was working full time, which means part of my plan already was not in place. Let us not even consider the fact that my amazing husband who had been a youth pastor for years was called to pastor the church that we had both grew up in. Oh that is great, I thought when we learned of the calling, I enthusiastically cheered him on, “baby God made YOU for this, YOU will be the most amazing, most humble, hardworking pastor I know!” Oh wait a minute… that means I have to be first lady, wait I can’t just sit on the front pew looking pretty; you want me to do what? Oh my, again this is not the plan! God what are you doing up there?
Sounds familiar? I mean maybe not this same situation, but have you ever found yourself questioning God’s decision making skills? Like dude, I mean God, I’m sorry Father, I think you have the plans for my life mixed up with Sally from the next state over, oh…no…it’s just me? Oh well I will take it for the team and admit full heartedly that, yes, Keena Nyeisha Wilson, is guilty as charged! Often times the scripture rings so true for me, “My thoughts are nothing like you thoughts”, says the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8a NLT). Crazy thing is, it is not until this very second that I realize I need to stop trusting my thoughts. Clearly time has taught me that I can be led by my unstable emotions, my unrealistic expectations, and my very limited view of the whole picture. There are so many facts that many care to never consider, we know it all, if not for anyone else, we definitely know what’s best for ourselves. I mean how many of us considered God about the college we attended, the major we declared, the career we went for, the answer to the proposal, the list goes on and on. See, you may have said yes to a few of those things, you might have said yes to all of them, but the truth of the matter is that if we are not careful we will find ourselves seeking our own will, our own plans, leaving the God who knows all and sees all completely out of the equation, how foolish of us!
Seeking
The purpose of this specific blog is quite simple, to let you in on the start of what helped me to surrender. It’s quite interesting because my surrender honestly started first with me seeking. If it was not for me seeking God’s purpose during that 40 day fast, I am unsure if I would have ever reached the point of “The Surrender”. This fast was the first of many that my husband and I would do, however there was something different about this fast. My husband is a big purpose person, he believes in finding that thing that you are called to do and giving it 110 percent of you. If you know my husband you know that he is a beast in all that he does, he is one of the hardest working and most inspired men of God that I know. I love you baby! Anyway, during the fast we had our joint request that we were seeking God for and we had our own separate ones. Honestly I just knew that I was already set regarding my purpose, and so I would spend just a little bit of time on that request. It was towards the very end of the fast that God shared this whole Christian counselor thing. As previously mentioned, I am thinking ok well that came from nowhere, I mean I knew no one at the time who was doing that, and I had never once in life considered it, but ok God ..you got it. I figured I can just start searching for jobs get some experience and then use what learnt with the parishioners of the church. Once I figured that was not the route that I could take, I came up with so many excuses and reasons for why I could not do what God had told me to do.
I can’t afford it. I don’t have time. I don’t want to. All sounds like good reasoning to me. I thought, yup, we can go right ahead and put that one to bed. Problem is, it is so hard to quiet the spirit once he clearly tells you what to do. So word of advice, if you don’t want to know, you better not go seeking! The word is very clear when speaking in regards to effective prayer “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8 NLT). I wonder why I even asked, I probably was looking for God to confirm my own ambitions, my own desires, but aren’t we so grateful, that he is not a “yes-man”? I mean at the moment we may not be happy with his answer, yet as we grow we understand the truth in the second part to the verse that was quoted earlier, “and my ways are far beyond anything you could ever imagine (Isaiah 55:8b NLT). I now realize that I could not have planned a better life with the world’s most effective life coach, that no matter the success that could have been obtained, that without God’s purpose, it was no purpose at all!
Check back next week to see where I am now and what I believe God has in store for me, but most importantly what he has in store for you if you’d just stop wasting time and SURRENDER!
Keena Khronicles
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