Am I a Slave to My Own Designs?

Do you sometimes wake up angry or in a bad mood? I do…and it usually has to do with something that happened the night before which didn’t get resolved. Or does it? 

If I look deep inside myself and I am totally honest, the root cause of most of my discontent is selfishness. I have my own agenda. I have my own plans. I have my own ideas of how things should be done. I have my own time table. I have my own ways. AND when someone/something messes with my well thought out plan, conflict arises. Hence, discontent comes my way.

Selfishness…

The problem is that I like things to go my way. I don’t want to give up my hopes, dreams, ventures, plans. I think they are worthy. I don’t see them as selfish. 

The thing I have to ask myself is: am I being governed by my own designs? 

I have to honestly answer questions such as: Am I a slave to my dreams? Does my plan leave room for God’s plan to be fulfilled in my life? Am I flexible enough to accept the fact that God’s will, must be done in me as He has predestined it even if it is different from my own will?

I have intellectual knowledge of God’s sovereignty over all things (which include my life and plans) but sometimes I realize I don’t have the spiritual maturity to accept this truth in my soul. I resist His will. I get annoyed by life’s interruptions. I become frustrated by the detours. I am afraid of deviations. I am nervous when faced with the unknown. I want to revert back to my old path. It’s like a disease…like some kind of disorder and I don’t know what the medicine is.

Or perhaps, I do know it, but I am not strong enough to take it.

I’m not strong enough to swallow the fact that life won’t always go my way. I’m not strong enough to find peace in knowing that God’s plan is the perfect one, not mine. I’m not strong enough to realize that even with the suffering and pain, God’s way, as indecipherable as it sometimes may seem, is the only way.

The only thing left to do is to go to Him, the source of that strength that I lack and hang on to Him as He leads me through His intricate path until I get to where He wants to take me. He is the only one who can carry me there and the only one who can free me from my bondage to my own self. I want to live a life in freedom from my own snares. I don’t want to walk the selfish road anymore. It is too lonely in there. So I pray the Lord will change my focus and shine the light on His path so I can follow it confident that it is the one that leads me to Him...and that He makes “that” the only place I want to be.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55: 8-9