God has done much in my life, has taught me much and show me much of Himself. For awhile now, God has been central to my life and the reason why I do the things I do. You don’t end up on a Christian mission ship with the purpose of evangelising the world without loving God. However, I have also known that I am still incredibly selfish and that I like being in control of myself and my situation, whatever that may be.
So, I have been asking God to help me in surrendering completely to Him. I like to do things. I am a great do-er. Things to do in your Christian life, to be the good Christian – I have all those boxes ticked. But surrendering – that’s not doing, that’s letting go; the one thing I find the most difficult. So repeatedly, for the last year, I have been praying and asking God to help me, as I know this is something I can’t do myself.
Earlier this year, I was asked to start a gospel choir onboard. This was one of my dreams – at some point in my life I wanted to run a gospel choir and be part of a group of people joining together to worship God through song and share this joy with others. I had mentioned nothing of this to anyone else, so when I was approached, I felt it was God saying, “Okay, it’s time now”. So I accepted, knowing that in my own strength this was impossible. I have been trained in running a choir, yet felt completely inadequate and incapable of what the position entailed. I accepted because not only was it fulfilling a dream, but I knew it was a way of keeping myself dependent on God.
Halfway through this year, I was asked if I’d like to move to the school and become a teacher onboard Logos Hope. This was another desire I’d had and kept quiet – although personnel knew of my teaching qualifications, I’d made no noise about wanting to teach onboard. After the first full week of teaching, I’d had enough. I had a mini-breakdown and wanted to get out of the school and even off the ship altogether. Not only was I not feeling capable of the role I’d been given (teaching music, sport, computer technology and religion), but for the next 2 weeks I was supposed to take the 4 year olds while their teacher was on break, and also commandeer the entire school Christmas musical for the next few months.
That was when God gave me a gentle kick in the behind. He reminded me of how He’d called me to the school and I knew it. He also reminded me of Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength and told me that I could do it, but only when God was doing it through me. The children I teach were all created by God; they are His. He is the only One fit to teach them, to guide them, to love them, to calm them down.
All my life, things have come quite easily. I enjoy a challenge, but whenever the challenge got too great I was easily able to find my way out or simply quit. This time God put me in a place where that was not an option – had I gone in tears to personnel, they would simply have reminded me that I’d been there one week and to at least give it a good go for another month or two. No, this time God did as I asked – He placed me in a position where I had no escape; it was trust in Him, surrender all or stay absolutely miserable.
Needless to say, I’m not a complete idiot – the next day I started over. Before beginning, I asked God to take over. I agreed that these children were His and I didn’t really know what to do with them properly. I asked that He be their shepherd and I simply the staff in His hands to use as He wills – this is His school and His classroom, not mine. I don’t think I have to tell you the difference it made, do I?
It is only when we come to the end of ourselves can we truly begin to find Christ in the way He intends. And more than that, He taught me that the joy we are supposed to have – the joy that shouts to the world that we are Christ’s and He is ours; it can only be true when it is not dependent on our circumstances but in Christ alone. No matter what is going on, whether we’ve had a bad day, if we find ourselves in debt, if our best friend has left us… we do not worship Christ because He may fix our problems if we pray hard enough – we worship Him because He is God and He alone is worthy. We can be joyful even in truly awful situations, not because we like the situation we are in, but because God is God regardless of our situation.
"In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song."
-Stuart Townend
