Give Me the Remote...

One of the foremost tenets of Christianity appears in the form of sacrifice. Not just tangible sacrifice, like money, but a personal sacrifice...like control.

It's something I don't like to discuss, mainly because I am still struggling with giving up control to God. But is it really something I gave up...or something I never had?

When I gave my life to Christ some 11 years ago (wow...long time!), I never understood what it truly meant to deny myself and take up the cross. It's no one's fault...not my parents, my pastor (actually, that falls under parents.), my youth minister, etc. I think God has planned a moment in everyone's lives where they begin to realize that they underestimated the meaning of letting God have it all. Usually that incurs a somewhat tricky period in one's life where they can travel down one of two roads, acceptance, or denial. It probably shouldn't be that simple, but it is in my mind.

Most of us hit denial. Let's face it, we hate letting God, or anyone here on Earth, have control over our lives. A look back through history, and one will find numerous references to people taking back control of their lives.

I guess in a way, I had to figure out what "letting God have it all" actually looked like. I have always been concerned with the how and why. I could easily understand the what, when, and where, but the how and why was so much deeper. Why should I allow God to have full control over my life? How do I allow God to have full control over my life? It has been one constant battle of understanding what control really meant...until I realized that I never really had control.

You see...God works in a strange way...at least strange to us...to Him, it is normal. He doesn't work on our time. He doesn't fit to a schedule, a year, a day...He is much larger than anything man-made or defined. And I had a hard time with that.

The past few weeks have really been a magnification of that distress. It is depressing, but at least it's honest. I have always wondered why others were seemingly on a completely different page than I was, why they seemed so much farther ahead than me in their lives. I wondered why some people were given, what seemed to be, a distinct gift, be it music, missions, compassion, writing, leading, preaching, teaching...etc, and I had yet to truly understand my "gift." Why was it that I was not moving forward? I had become stagnant, or worse, I had regressed in my faith. It got to the point where I seriously questioned my faith. I began to doubt. Myself, my friends, God...And it seemed like I continued to spiral out of control, out of anger, out of sadness. The world that God created beautiful, seemed to me like a cold, hateful, judging world that had its target set on Sam, and I was taking a beating like none other.

I viewed myself as alone...even to the point of seeing my life as permanently set on being alone. And I blamed God. God had planned a life, that at that time was not matching up to the life I assumed I would be living. I had assumed freedom, success, happiness, love, and influence. I thought that college would be the place. The place where Sam would rise up and become something great. Instead, I was diminishing into a size that was almost invisible. Why God? Why are you making me smaller? Why are you making me into something I don't want to be? I thought you were supposed to bring happiness, and hope? Why do I feel hopeless?

Yes...I felt hopeless.

It is quite the scary feeling. One that I hid well, for the most part. One that remained within the four walls of my room, or so I thought. Instead this feeling transcended into my public life. Worship was seen as a pain in the ass. Why worship a God who I am in a battle with? Attending church was based solely on who was going that day, not on the fact that it was an opportunity to grow and rest and praise God. Being Sam, no longer felt like my own. Being Sam, was no fun...at least not this person called Sam. I began to hate. I began to loathe. I hated my friends. I hated my family. I hated my classes. I hated my life. I took every ounce of anger out on the people who cared about me the most. My best friends became my biggest enemies. They were people who couldn't be trusted, and yet I needed them, no, I craved them because somehow when I was around them I felt better about myself. That is, until they began to grow, and prosper. That is until they began to progress in faith and hope...something I assumed I lacked. I remember sitting in my room one night, and just saying to God, "I can't wait to leave this place. To leave these people. They never cared about me. I just took up air." It got to the point where I began to curse their presence. I challenged their love. I challenged God's love. It God truly cared, this wouldn't be happening. If God truly cared, He would have come down already, smacked me in the face with a purpose, and I would begin living...I would begin following.

Yes, my belief in God was contingent on Him coming down on my time, doing something I wanted, and listening to me, and not vice-versa. It was a very conditional love. One that I probably would not describe as love. I would sit and pray, awaiting that moment, my burning bush, where I would realize that God loved me, and I would subsequently love God. Recently I prayed for over an hour, and afterwards I felt this release...until I tried to emulate it over and over and over again. I felt that if I kept doing the things that made me happy, that made me feel like positive change was occurring, then God and I would be ok. Wrong...

God wanted me. He didn't need me...He wanted me. Here God was, with this plan to love the people He created, to take them back from the grips of the earth and Satan, a plan that didn't need to include me, but it did. Why...because He wanted me. It's a very hard thing to understand...in fact, I am going to stop understanding, and start going....

Yes that was, and is my problem. I expected God to answer my questions. I expected answers to life. I expected a cheat sheet. I expected... You see, it took many times for me to understand the fact that God was in control. It took me many more times to realize that I wasn't in control. And it is taking me even more times to live like God is in control. It wasn't that I didn't have faith...it was that I wasn't prioritzing my faith properly. God was supposed to be number one. Not me, not my parents, not my friends, not my school, and not my purpose. God. And here He was, trying so hard to get me to realize that I was ignoring the one being who wanted me, who always wants me, who always loved me...even when He didn't have to love me. I was ignoring God. God wasn't trying to express the fact of His control. He was expressing that He loved me so much that He had included me in His grand plan. He was expressing that He loved me.

I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I was looking for control in a life that was never mine to control. And God wasn't trying to be a dictator. He was trying to be a father. He was the Father. And I was, and am His child. My love for God wasn't going to be displayed through my successes.

It was going to be displayed in my faith..in my love.

I still struggle with control issues. I still live a roller-coaster-like life, but remember, after a dip, there is a rise, and one day that ride will end on a high note.

Don't you hear God saying, "Give me the remote, I had it first!"