“To give up your own plan is to kneel before Jesus. It might be your plan for today . . . or for the big picture directions you thought your life was going in. Big or small, your plan is your plan. Coming to Jesus means giving up the way you’d do it if you were in charge.”- Alli Patterson
“Stop striving and know that I am God.”- Psalm 46:10 (NASB)
In Chapter 4 (“Kneel Down”) of How to Stay Standing, Alli Patterson talks about three aspects of what it means to come to Jesus. Today she covers the first aspect.
1. To come is to give up your plan. First, Alli notes her biggest fear in giving up her plan. She worried about trusting God with her future and then finding out He didn’t really have anything good planned. As a result, Alli realized that if she truly wanted God, she’d need to risk finding out if He’d come through with a way forward.
In the gospel of Mark, a woman subject to bleeding for twelve years came to Jesus about her future (Mark 5:24-34). Certainly, Alli agrees, the woman showed courage to come that day. However, the author adds, the woman came on her own terms. Accordingly, the woman hoped to get what she came for and walk away. And the woman’s plan worked. She received the healing she came for. But, Alli stresses, Jesus had something far greater in mind:
“To get her to it, Jesus had to help her do more than just show up. She was going to have to willingly kneel down. Jesus wanted her to fully come to him. . . . He was going to give her the opportunity to really come to him, to show up, kneel down willingly, and see what he might do. . . .
Crawling through the crowd and slinking away wasn’t enough for Jesus. He wanted it all for her — he wanted to give her life. But first she had to show up. She had to fight through her fear and tell the truth.”
Today’s question: When do you find it hard to kneel before Jesus and cede control? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The unbreakable rock – grace”
