Submitting Yourself To God's Will

Sylvia's Lesson:

The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message" "Alter your course 10 degrees south." Promptly a return message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north."

The captain was angered; his command had been ignored. So he sent a second message: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am the captain!" Soon another message was received: "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am seaman third class Jones." Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke: "Alter your course 10 degrees south--I am a battleship." Then the reply came "Alter your course 10 degrees north--I am a lighthouse."

So often we think that we should be the ones to decide our own future and that if others stand in our way, they should be the ones to move. But often God is the one placing obstacles in our paths, trying to steer us away from dangerous “rocks” and keep us on the course He has set for us.

God has a perfect plan for us, and He knows everything… so why do we have such trouble trusting everything into His hands?

A big part of it is fear. We know with our minds that God is in control and that He knows better than we do, but our emotions pull us the opposite direction. We like knowledge; we fear the unknown. But fear can be sinful. If we’re constantly afraid, our fear pushes us away from God. “Perfect love casts out fear” as 1 John 4:18 says, but the opposite is semi-true as well. If we’re harboring fear, we’re not trusting in God. If we trust in Him and obey Him in spite of our fear, He’ll fill us with such a measure of His love that our fears will be cast out.

I speak from experience! Some of you may have noticed that I can be kind of shy at times, but even so, if you’d met me a few years ago at any social function, you probably wouldn’t recognize me! I was not just shy, I was insecure and standoffish. I was terrified of what people would think of me, very easily offended, unwilling to do anything that might direct attention to myself, and horribly afraid of doing something stupid. The result was that I did many stupid things!

Well, when one of His children has a problem like that, God doesn’t just stand by. He set about to change me. And… well… I can’t say that I liked it. His treatment included making me serve as a small group leader at my old Bright Lights group from the start, sending me to TeenPact, and worst of all, leading me to start a Drama Club two years ago.

I must admit, I was not the greatest small group leader that first year. I shook uncontrollably from fear during the small group meetings… hopefully none of the girls noticed! Our group was pretty quiet since I had trouble even carrying on a normal conversation, and leading group discussion was MUCH worse! But the girls were sweet and patient, and I stopped being quite as afraid.
Then… Drama Club. I have no idea why I actually started it. I was still terrified of speaking in front of people, and leading a group of other kids was not exactly in the middle of my comfort zone. The only explanation is that God laid it on my heart, and everything just kind of fell into place. God has a way of making things work out like that! So… the first day of Drama Club arrived. And I wasn’t sure if my co-leader was going to be there or not. Sixteen kids had signed up… I took a look at our living room and suddenly sixteen seemed like sixty. A couple of the kids were older than me and, of course, most were taller. I had a mini panic attack. What in the world am I DOING!? I can’t do this! It was time to start all of a sudden, and my co-leader… wasn’t there. I was stuck with sixteen kids, all of whom were sitting quietly and awkwardly in our living room, watching me. It was freaky! That was probably one of the scariest days of my life, though now I wouldn’t have any problem with being in that situation.

Over the next few weeks, I had to learn to boss people around… even if they were guys who were taller and older than me. I had to learn to make other kids be quiet and do as I said. For a girl who wanted to be that quiet one and not stand out, it was absolutely terrifying.

But gradually, my comfort zone grew. And grew.

Last year I led Drama Club again… on the day of auditions I stood in front of thirty-one kids… double the original number. I was absolutely thrilled to find out that I wasn’t afraid. I had a blast with Drama Club last summer! It was stressful, but I was relying on God, and my comfort zone was about fifteen times bigger than it had been before!

Plus, I'd gone to TeenPact that spring. For those of you who don’t know, TeenPact is a government and leadership class in which homeschoolers go up to the state capitol and learn about the way our government works. Some of the things we have to do include reading bills we’ve written in front of a hundred or so people, debate peers, and interview random lobbyists. If you have fear or insecurity issues when you go to TeenPact, you will have changed dramatically by the time you get back. There’s no time or room for fear; you do what you have to do… and you love it.

My fear used to be the most powerful factor in my life. I hate to admit it, but it’s true! Well, God doesn’t like it when anything is more powerful than He. So… He decided to fix things for me. And I can honestly say that the past few years, though not always the most fun, have been by far the most rewarding of my entire life.

The thing is, I still struggle with fear sometimes. Some people just have a gift, though they don’t try to, of terrifying me back into shyness. Some situations just scare me irrationally. But the great thing is that God can even use our fears to bring us closer to Him. If we’re totally afraid to the point of thinking I can’t do this; it’s too hard/too scary! And yet we choose to do it anyway, we’re relying completely on God to complete us and make up for our lack of courage.

We’re going to play a game to illustrate the way we should rely on God. (Blindfold game)

(Talk about game- was it scary? Why?)

What character quality did you need to practice when you were blindfolded? (Trust)

It's not something you would immediately think of,  but you also had to practice humility. Think about it- if you hadn't been humble enough to do exactly what your partner told you, you probably wouldn't have done too well!

Trust takes humility. We have to admit that God knows everything and we don't... just like in the game, God sees the big picture, whereas we're blind.

How many of you have heard of Samuel Morse? (raise hands)

Samuel Morse was the inventor of the telegraph. He accomplished outstanding things in his lifetime, received many honors, and was greatly respected. Once someone asked him if he ever encountered situations where he didn’t know what to do. His response was “More than once, and whenever I could not see my way clearly, I knelt down and prayed to God for light and understanding." He said of his invention of the telegraph, "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other men but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone and He was pleased to reveal it to me."

We need to realize, as Samuel Morse did, that it is God who is in charge of our lives. He is responsible for every success we ever have. He loves us more than we could imagine, and we have every reason to trust Him enough to just step back and let Him control our lives. He will do a much better job than we ever could!