Heaven gives each of us a mission to fulfill from our mother’s womb, which means that God has every day of our life planned for us here on earth, a mission for us to accomplish for the greater good of humanity. Each of us is one piece on His tapestry of life. Some say that if you want to make God laugh, then tell Him your plans. Mother Teresa said, “Don’t plan, be led.” That’s where the difficulty come sin – facing the challenges of everyday living, doing all the planning ourselves, rather than following God’s lead .
From an early age, most of us thought that we were in full control of our own lives. We had no clue that there was a Divine Being pulling the strings. It was easy to believe that we were always in total control, even when we hit some rough spots on the road. We had gone through the pains, hardships, heartaches, and suffering alone rigorously thinking that we were in control. What troubles us and hurts us immensely are our reason, our thoughts and worries, and our own desire at all costs to deal with what afflicts us. This can be a very lonely journey doing it alone.
Thinking back on those times, we can remember encountering so many difficulties doing it alone, and Jesus never left us. He was always standing by waiting and wanting to help, but because of our given freewill He couldn’t interfere. He couldn’t act until He heard us murmur a plea to Him for help. Not easy to do when we do not know Him, but that can change. If we ask, He’s always ready to give us the grace we need to develop a relationship with Him.
Getting to know Him will take effort and time on our part. It is our saying YES to wanting Him in our life, that is, opening our mind to let Him enter since He has always been there waiting for us to answer His knocking. He’s ready to provide us the peace, love, joy and stability in our life that we so much desire, but that comes with a price. That means that we have to turn our lives over to Him and let Him run the show. It is our saying, “Jesus, You take care of it– I turn over control of my life to You because my own efforts have failed to provide the inner peace I desire.” And there’s no better choice than to hand the keys to our future to the One who created us and planned every day of our life.
Giving Up Control. When we give over control of everything in our life to God, we have to align our thoughts with His so that He can reign fully in us and through us. He wants to mold us and shape us into His image. For that to happen, we have to be willing and committed to become a nothing so that God can dwell within us and direct our lives. By giving Him our will, we are giving Him permission to control everything in our life, our job, family, financial status, health, everything. We become ONE with Him! With Him in total control, we don’t have to look back because we know that His plan is the best one for us at every moment, especially since it’s filled with His love.
So how do we know God’s plan for us at the different crossroads we encounter moving forward? We don’t know what the future holds because He doesn’t reveal our future to us beforehand and most certainly don’t see the big picture of God’s plan for us, which can be unsettling. However, God sees our tomorrow, and offers us hope, which means we have to trust His plan for our life, especially since He only wants what’s best and essential for His children. We are called to forget the past and don’t even think about tomorrow. Focus on His Will for us today, which can provide an internal Peace that He offers to His faithful.
We claim that Peace by doing everything with Him and for Him, not for creatures. He really desires to walk with us and help us in our everyday tasks. So let’s invite Him to walk with us because in reality, he already is controlling our works and life. It’s a call to SURRENDER!
Surrender. Turning over control of our lives to God isn’t ever easy. For sure, we will be taking back control, maybe only partially, from time to time, so we will have to surrender control back to God over and over again. We have no handbook to follow, only the Holy Spirit if we are open to His guidance. Let’s remember that God is so patient with His children and delights in their surrender efforts to make His work easier in the world.
In Summary,
· Nothing really matters in our earthly life because it is all passing. God is in control of everything, including every beat of our heart and every breath we take. When we take control of our own lives, we lose our peace and joy and cease to be His instrument in the circle of people He places with us.
· Think how happy, carefree, and worry free we would be if we had someone taking care of all our problems. He wants to be that person in our life to take care of them. All we have to do is let go and let God take over, which means we commit the entirety of our will to Him.
· Ultimately, we experience a peace, calm, stability and serenity in our lives when we become a nothing and totally surrender our will to God, acknowledging to Him that we’ve taken our hands off the wheel and trust Him to lead us according to His plan, not ours.
· From time-to-time we will return to our old ways, taking back control, but with His help and our persistence, we can be guided by Him to return to live in His Will.
“O JESUS, I SURRENDER MYSELF TO YOU, TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING!” - Surrender Novena