If only I could loosen my grip...
I don't know how to start this post...
I started work at HomeChoice on Wednesday and since, everything with the job has been really great! I get on with my colleagues, I enjoy the work and I think making pretty good progress at learning the job. It doesn't really feel like a job - I think I would do it for free if I could afford it. It's one of those 'too good to be true' moments, that causes my inherently cynical and anxious self to fear what could take it away from me. Those who know me well know that I have a need to be in control to feel secure. However, I cannot remember the last time I was in control, and I guess it's somewhat inevitable that I have attempted to secure down things in my life that I value. I suppose at the moment, I feel anxious about my job security (which sounds odd, having just started), knowing I have very little control over this. What I do know is that God is fully in control, and I think that my anxiety is revealing of a lack of trust in His plan for my life.
A big problem is that I sin. I am a deviant and my natural inclination is to do those things which God does not want me to do. I really hate that I cannot walk straight, but instead veer into sin at most nearly every opportunity. But I know I am not alone in this. Paul in Romans 7:15 said, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." This is just how I feel. And because I am a control-freak, I have been trying to fix my own sin, despite the encouragement of good friends to surrender myself, including my control obsession, to Jesus, and let Him be Lord!! Of course, I fail. I cannot fix myself, and after concerted efforts to 'walk straight', I wander off again. Then I panic - "What if God punishes me by taking away my job?" I think this shows a number of things - 1, I have been valuing a career over God, 2, I don't trust God's plan for my life, and 3, I forget Jesus.
I think a major part of my problem is that I'm having a hard time accepting that my life is not my own anymore. I belong to Jesus. I'm struggling to keep on track, largely because trying to do what God asks of me is impossible without God, yet this is what I have been trying to do. I can't do it, and when I seek to guarantee security for myself, I find I can't guarantee a thing for myself in an uncertain world. I was reading an article on the 'net about the right Christian response to sin (I can't remember the source - maybe I'll post it later) and it said that it's hopeless attempting to fix sin on our own. How true these words are!!! And how foolish I have been to have clung so closely to control of my own life that I try to sort myself out and not let God even a look-in. It's time for me to submit to Jesus, and to give Him my struggles, my sin, my work, my anxiety and anything else that I've kept for myself for this long. I hope I can let go of them.
*This blog was posted whilst listening to Kings of Convenience, Ben Harper and The Danielson Famile.
I started work at HomeChoice on Wednesday and since, everything with the job has been really great! I get on with my colleagues, I enjoy the work and I think making pretty good progress at learning the job. It doesn't really feel like a job - I think I would do it for free if I could afford it. It's one of those 'too good to be true' moments, that causes my inherently cynical and anxious self to fear what could take it away from me. Those who know me well know that I have a need to be in control to feel secure. However, I cannot remember the last time I was in control, and I guess it's somewhat inevitable that I have attempted to secure down things in my life that I value. I suppose at the moment, I feel anxious about my job security (which sounds odd, having just started), knowing I have very little control over this. What I do know is that God is fully in control, and I think that my anxiety is revealing of a lack of trust in His plan for my life.
A big problem is that I sin. I am a deviant and my natural inclination is to do those things which God does not want me to do. I really hate that I cannot walk straight, but instead veer into sin at most nearly every opportunity. But I know I am not alone in this. Paul in Romans 7:15 said, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." This is just how I feel. And because I am a control-freak, I have been trying to fix my own sin, despite the encouragement of good friends to surrender myself, including my control obsession, to Jesus, and let Him be Lord!! Of course, I fail. I cannot fix myself, and after concerted efforts to 'walk straight', I wander off again. Then I panic - "What if God punishes me by taking away my job?" I think this shows a number of things - 1, I have been valuing a career over God, 2, I don't trust God's plan for my life, and 3, I forget Jesus.
I think a major part of my problem is that I'm having a hard time accepting that my life is not my own anymore. I belong to Jesus. I'm struggling to keep on track, largely because trying to do what God asks of me is impossible without God, yet this is what I have been trying to do. I can't do it, and when I seek to guarantee security for myself, I find I can't guarantee a thing for myself in an uncertain world. I was reading an article on the 'net about the right Christian response to sin (I can't remember the source - maybe I'll post it later) and it said that it's hopeless attempting to fix sin on our own. How true these words are!!! And how foolish I have been to have clung so closely to control of my own life that I try to sort myself out and not let God even a look-in. It's time for me to submit to Jesus, and to give Him my struggles, my sin, my work, my anxiety and anything else that I've kept for myself for this long. I hope I can let go of them.
*This blog was posted whilst listening to Kings of Convenience, Ben Harper and The Danielson Famile.
posted by Iain at 12:15 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Iain,
This is pretty unrelated to your blog - which I did enjoy reading - I am finding the very same challenges, that I belong to Jesus now and so much of me wants to live for myself, but ask Jesus to help me acheive my own desires!
But, I was reflecting today after reading my way through a few different blogs - a new craze should be started whereby people don't actually have their own blogs (I don't have one) but instead make themselves serial commentators on other peoples blogs. Like some sort of parasite I guess!
Maybe I just need to get out more?
Iain, you made me smile! Keep wrestling with God, it's what he asks us to do (Genesis 32)! I'm glad things are still going well at HomeChoice. I'm praying for you, Monsieur I...all the way from America(r)!
Chinny
PS: I like your taste in music! ;)
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