Submit or run?

[Gentle Lamb]

Did anyone ever feel like they were running from their calling? Praying for God's will to be done in their lives but having such a hard time and tough experiences that you just wanted to throw in the towel and do something else? How did you handle it, did you ever just reach the point where you submitted to God and what were the results? I've been praying for God's will to be done in one area of my life... numerous challenges have made me want to give up!!! But God keeps leading me back. So I am submitting.

 

[timf]

Many people have been mistaken about what they thought God's will was for them. As a result, sometimes very painful consequences have been encountered.

Considering how difficult it can be for someone to determine God's specific will for their own life, it would seem unwise to suggest what it is for someone else.

General principles can be applied like avoid fornication or cry out for wisdom. I think we are allowed a lot of freedom in life and should not be fearful of making a mistake.

Something else to consider is that if one experiences difficulty on a particular path (like a career) that perhaps consideration should be given to a different path.

I am not sure what you are dealing with, but you don't want to be like the kid in the Farside cartoon pushing on the door to the gifted school marked "pull".

 

[Gentle Lamb]

I have more in mid like a type of Jonah situation. I know difficulty can be a deterrent to a particular path, but those difficulties that seem completely insurmountable are things that can also build us up and make us much stronger.

I have learned that some of the things I was complaining about most bitterly are things that God has used to shape me and build my faith and character. For instance, my previous living situation allowed me to shut myself away with the Word of God and I haduch time to pray. Having a different situation now, I miss the time I had that I could spend with God.

My profession, God has used to work on my character and heal me of past wounds from childhood. It has been difficult and painful!!! However, the results.... I marvel at God and I appreciate Him so much!!!! These are born of my submitting to the will of God. A particular choice has been a struggle for me recently. However I have been prayerful.

My main desire is for God's will to be done. I have learned that His is much better than mine, His thoughts far deeper, His knowledge much greater.

 

[Brad D.]

For me, early on in my walk, the Lord did have to use some mistakes I made in discerning His voice to further refine me, Helping me more in future decisions to discern what was soul and what was Spirit. But, I know now He used those mistakes and worked them to the good. He is merciful that way. There is much mixture in us He has to work out and empty us of, and it is in these processes we find out more about ourselves and the depths He must go. His cross does great work that way. The more of that likeness in Him we become, the better our hearing ear comes. " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." So it is a process. But in the end we see that even though He hands us over to some to some of our decisions ,He holds us us up all the same. And no matter how painful, we look back and know He was with us all the time.

I think what He is really after is a heart like David's one who is after His own heart. What I hear in your post is one who earnestly seeks Him. This is a heart He has great mercy on. When we can look back like you have and see the wisdom in His dealings with us, even when it is painful, then we have made great progress. I have no idea about your particulars and who can say what the Lord's will is for anybody in their life. I would just encourage you to keep having that willing heart to go wherever so He may lead. To allow Him to take whatever so He desires to take, to open what needs to be open, to shut what needs to shut. When we can come to the Lord that way and say with all our heart whatever the cost, " Not my will, but yours be done" and truly mean it, then I believe it will all work out in the end. Blessings to you. I will pray you will desire Him above all else, being content with whatsoever He may choose.

 

[Gentle Lamb]

For me, early on in my walk, the Lord did have to use some mistakes I made in discerning His voice to further refine me, Helping me more in future decisions to discern what was soul and what was Spirit. But, I know now He used those mistakes and worked them to the good. He is merciful that way. There is much mixture in us He has to work out and empty us of, and it is in these processes we find out more about ourselves and the depths He must go. His cross does great work that way. The more of that likeness in Him we become, the better our hearing ear comes. " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." So it is a process. But in the end we see that even though He hands us over to some to some of our decisions ,He holds us us up all the same. And no matter how painful, we look back and know He was with us all the time.

I think what He is really after is a heart like David's one who is after His own heart. What I hear in your post is one who earnestly seeks Him. This is a heart He has great mercy on. When we can look back like you have and see the wisdom in His dealings with us, even when it is painful, then we have made great progress. I have no idea about your particulars and who can say what the Lord's will is for anybody in their life. I would just encourage you to keep having that willing heart to go wherever so He may lead. To allow Him to take whatever so He desires to take, to open what needs to be open, to shut what needs to shut. When we can come to the Lord that way and say with all our heart whatever the cost, " Not my will, but yours be done" and truly mean it, then I believe it will all work out in the end. Blessings to you. I will pray you will desire Him above all else, being content with whatsoever He may choose.

Thank you so much for your deep insight and words of wisdom, I really appreciate it. In 2014 I was absolutely suicidal, ready to throw in the towel and call it all quits. But I surrendered my life to Christ instead and it has been blossoming beautifully. Today, a soul that would have been condemned to a sorrowful eternity without God is now happily able to testify of His goodness, mercy, and love. That is why I keep praying for God's will to be done. I truly mean it. I've had some tough decisions to make lately as I'm at a big crossroads in my life. But, fully convinced of God's will, and knowing that following His will does not always bring peace (think of Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane) I am going with Jesus. And I keep telling Him my fears and that it's me and not Him and He keeps helping me. It's not easy, but in the end I want to live a life that is spiritually fulfilled. I think of Matthew 6:33. That is the ultimate goal. To have an eternity of bliss and an earthly life that was lived in a way most useful to God. A beautiful thread woven into the tapestry of life - that's an image given by Corrie Ten Boom, one of my favorite people.

 

[By_the_Book]

Did anyone ever feel like they were running from their calling? Praying for God's will to be done in their lives but having such a hard time and tough experiences that you just wanted to throw in the towel and do something else? How did you handle it, did you ever just reach the point where you submitted to God and what were the results? I've been praying for God's will to be done in one area of my life... numerous challenges have made me want to give up!!! But God keeps leading me back. So I am submitting.

I have been prayerfully thinking about your post since it came out several days ago.

Being an individual who has been in a relationship with Jesus for over 40 years and in full-time ministry for 25 I do understand the complexity of what you are describing. And it is much more complex than people can understand unless they're actually in it or have gone through it. There's not a few sentences that can cover the complexity of this situation but I do want to share a couple of things with you.

Most of the people that I have known myself included who actually had a calling from God, a real calling not their own personal desires, on their life did not actually want initially to accept it. Even though they could not completely understand it they knew deep inside of themselves that the calling would cost them greatly and create a lot of difficulty in their life. However on the other side, there was something in them so attached to that calling that there was no way they could not give in to it.

They also can't quit. So many times they go through so many different circumstances and they say to God that's it, I'm done, I want to quit but they just can't quit the calling will not allow them to quit.

Those things said, the same people also received the greatest joy and the greatest satisfaction in life from submitting to and living out their calling.

If you ever have a more personalized question or issue you would like to communicate with someone about privately please feel free to send me a personal message through the forum.

 

[Gentle Lamb]

Amen, thank you so much for your post. So much happened in between, I couldn't reply sooner. I was just digesting all these words of wisdom. They came at the right time. God really is our Father. A Father teaches, a Father leads, a Father guides, a Father chastises, a Father comforts... He has done all of those things for me and more. I have never had any regrets in following God. Life circumstances often are not easy, however, if we are willing to learn, to listen, to obey, He is always willing to teach us. I surrendered my life to Him in 2014 and because I said not my will but yours be done, that's what saved me, that's why I am still here today. So I continue to hand it over to God... and I've been learning, and growing and I praise God for all of it because He truly is good and in truth, all things do work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose - Romans 8:28.

 

[RoanokeIllinois]

Did anyone ever feel like they were running from their calling? Praying for God's will to be done in their lives but having such a hard time and tough experiences that you just wanted to throw in the towel and do something else? How did you handle it, did you ever just reach the point where you submitted to God and what were the results? I've been praying for God's will to be done in one area of my life... numerous challenges have made me want to give up!!! But God keeps leading me back. So I am submitting.

Even before I found my way back to God, I always felt his presence in my life.
When something Ironic, or miraculous happens to a person in their life one time, it maybe coincidental. Maybe even if it happens twice, or several times. But when certain things continue to happen around a person, then it's something much much more! It's God telling that person, that he is working threw them.

Weather or not that person will listen? well, I learned the hard way, that is entirely up to that person. All I know, is the more I stopped shutting him out, and the more truth I saught, and the more logic, and Love I saught, the closer to him I got, and the better my life got.

I mean, it took me many years of continuously testing things out, and being curious in life, questioning everything and everyone, and nobody could tell me nothing. I knew it all, and blah blah blah, and that never really worked to well. Because, that's when a person is living in sin, and it will only be a matter of time, before things go wrong, living a life without God.

And things are a lot worse without God in someone's life, compared to with Him. So, sometimes, we just have to sit back, stop over thinking things like I constantly do, and just let God's plan work for us.

Pray like I do, for God to simply relax your mind, and he will do so, like he has done for me.