But how exactly does one submit his own will to Christ? This becomes the salient question, how do we apply the theoretical knowledge we have been led to? My own opinion is that the answer lies in daily prayer. The timing of these prayers of submission becomes important as well, for me personally the timing is critical. In my own experience, I find that each day, I must begin by praying the prayer to once again ask God to … “please make my decisions today for me Lord, lead me where you want me to be, bring to me the people who you think I need to see, alter what it is I like, remove what must be removed, and do with me as you will.” The sentiment is important, the turning over of control is critical, the words should be those you would offer. For me, this prayer must be offered each morning, and if I wish to have God control even my subconscious at night, each evening as well.
When I forget to offer this prayer, or become distracted by the “critical” things that vie for my attention, I tend to have “bad” days. Often, victories that Christ has worked within me, are forsaken through my neglect to submit. Satan is smart. He leaves me alone for days on end, lulling me into the idea that I am past the point of desiring an old sinful habit. I begin to get lax in asking God to lead. I begin to think I don’t have such an immediate problem. The net effect; I turn the gift of victory inward, and self rears its ugly head. Left to my own strength I quickly find I am NOT past the sins of my past, as forsaking victory, I bring them into my present.
This begs the question, how can you call it victory if you fail again? The problem is that we think of victory or loss in self-centered terms. It is NOT our victory when it comes. It is Christ alone. Our failures come from separating ourselves from the source of the victory. Our failures come, because we “forget” to submit our will for any reason. We get complacent. We get arrogant. We get neglectful. And we fail as a result. Removing even the desire for sin, does not prevent us from seeking an old sin out again. We do this because we fail to submit daily. When we pray our prayer of submission, we find the victory He so desperately wanted to give us.
So let’s assume that unlike me, you are able to maintain a regimen of asking God to control your life each day without forgetting to do so. Problems solved right. Actually yes, but the first time you do this it is NOT going to feel that way. Imagine for a minute that you are behind the wheel of a car you drive each day. In our analogy, Christ asks to drive your car today, and instead of your normal routine of failure, we decide to let Him. This is done in the offering of our prayer to let Him have control. But now comes the hard part. We have to sit in the passenger seat, doing nothing really. We’re like kids on holiday, enjoying the ride. But at first it is hard to get used to the idea that we do NOT get to touch the accelerator or the brake anymore. We are moving at the speed He decides is appropriate. For some of us, this feels way TOO slow. For others, it feels like the Daytona 500. But in each case, Christ decides how fast we go.
It gets worse. Not only do we not get to “control” the speed of our spiritual journey, we do not get any say on the roads He chooses to take. And my roads are different from yours. We get involved in traffic situations we do not understand. We seem to be bumping other vehicles along the way with no apparent explanation. Being our first time as a passenger, we are decidedly nervous about being driven, even if by our Savior God. But as time progresses, we begin to relax a little. We start looking at where He is taking us, and begin to see hope re-emerge on the horizon. Then it happens. A semi-tractor trailer truck changes lanes and begins to head right for us. Our natural inclination, when faced with impending trouble, or a sin we are habitually fond of, is to grab the wheel and turn the car into the ditch. Up to now, this is what we have always done when faced with temptation – we failed. Even when we hold firm, we want to turn away so badly we can hardly stand it, and our life is filled with misery as a result.
Here is where the rubber meets the road so to speak – in our new approach we decide to let Christ handle the impending head on collision however He sees fit. We close our eyes, grab our seats, and decide that whatever the fate, we are going to instead trust our driver to handle it. He does. Immediately, He tells us, open your eyes, it’s over. We realize we are still on road. We did not hit the truck, the truck is gone, vanished from view. And we are still rolling along at whatever speed Christ thinks is appropriate. We are amazed, dumbfounded, and incredibly curious on how that just happened. We cannot figure out how Christ did what He did. It makes no sense. It defies logic. It is outside of our capacity to rationalize it. But here we are, still rolling along, still safe.
It would be nice if our analogy could end here, but there is a bit more. Two things can happen to us at this point in our journey. We can realize the freedom that comes from sitting in the passenger seat. We can realize that we have something new to say to the world. We can tell them what Christ has now done just for us. We have a testimony. We have experimental knowledge of how Christ has removed from us, what we could never remove. We have the freedom that comes from this gift of victory. And going forward we can become content to be a passenger in our world, ever moving along His roads, at His speeds, to His destinations. If we can learn to trust Him, over time we will see our trust reaffirmed again and again. For there will surely be more trucks, and if we continue to trust Him to save us, more victories.
But there are also dangers on our journey. Instead of being content as a passenger, we begin to get bored, longing for a bit more “influence” on how fast we go, and where we are heading. We start to think that maybe we can sit back in the driver’s seat once again. You know, just to help out a little. After all, Christ must need a break sometimes, from having to drive us around all the time right? We ask Him to pull over and let us drive for a while. He does, as it is only at our request that He drives, or does not drive. We take the wheel ourselves again, and it begins to feel good. We start thinking that the incidents along the road that He avoided must have been attributed to something we did to help out. Perhaps it was our good advice. Perhaps it was our internal goodness. Maybe these victories came from our subconscious minds anyway, and really never had anything to do with Him. We begin to think we are good enough to handle our own cars on our own journey. And we send Him away.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those that must be in the driver’s seat, independent, self-aware, mature, self-controlled, self-disciplined, and self-reliant; and those who can learn to find joy in the passenger’s seat, childlike, immature, completely dependent on others, understanding that everything of value can only come as a gift from Him. This is what Christ referred to as the Sheep and the Goats in his own analogies in His days of ministry here in our world. His audience understood them the same way we do. Sheep are stupid. They are humble. They follow, and are content to follow. They realize their only protection comes from their Shepherd. Left on their own, they perish. They have no ideas about where to go, they are led by their Shepherd. They simply sit back, enjoy the journey, and trust the One who leads them. Goats too know the Shepherd, but goats have their own ideas about where they should go. Some think they are capable of defending themselves against the wolves in the world. Goats know the Shepherd, but they are not content to listen to Him. They want control. And they fail as a result. Instead of following Christ away from the dangers, they head straight into it. This distinction is based entirely on how a person responds to the permanent release of control of their lives.
Are you a sheep, or a goat? Are you a passenger or a driver? Are you a child, or believe yourself to be an adult? Our culture, our social circles, even our American ideals – ALL encourage the wrong answer. We are taught self-reliance from birth by everything in the world the evil one can throw at us. We learn to despise the poor, simply because they are poor. We argue it is because they do not “choose” to work that they find themselves in their pathetic conditions. In so doing, we reinforce the idea in our own minds that our conditions come from “our” hard work – not as a result of His blessings and gifts to us. We begin to believe we are the masters of our own destiny. We buy into the American dream that anyone can work hard enough to earn themselves into bounty. And we look down on any who have not achieved this dream as being lazy or unmotivated. But all of our thinking is backwards.
“The poor will always be with you” Christ said. It is not because our heavenly Father cares less for the poor; it is because we NEED an example of those who “depend” for their survival. The poor teach us that despite our success, ALL require saving from a Savior; ALL receive their bounty from the Lord. As the poor depend on the charity of others for their survival; so ALL depend on the charity of Christ for our own survivals – both physical and spiritual. To pity the poor, to feel sorry for them, to want to help them out of their poverty – are the exact feelings of our Lord for each of us on a spiritual basis. We are all hurting, and all require a master physician to heal us. The healing process must begin, but how we respond to it may alter our future with it. Will we be the passengers on our journey, the sheep who are led by our Shepherd? Or will we constantly take back the wheels in our cars, and like the goats offer our own ideas on how to save us? This is the dilemma of each one.
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