Giving God Everything

By Wesley Grizzard

What does it really mean to give God everything? This is one I’ve always struggled with. Honestly, I think we can all say that we struggle with this one. Some things in our lives are easy to give to God, other things…not so much. For me, it took me understanding that it’s not about me and I’m not in control, that God is sovereign, that He has already laid out my future, and that worrying about it never got anyone anything except a receding hairline! 

We are human, which means we’re flawed. We make a lot of mistakes and we do a lot of selfish things. We want what we want and we want it now! We even pray selfish prayers. The big hitter for me was when I realized that I was praying to the Lord selfishly. I wasn’t praying for His plan in my life, I was praying for my own. As most of us probably know, it doesn’t usually pan out so well when we have that sort of mindset. We get so caught up in what we want that we don’t stop to think about what God wants or what would please Him or even how we could be thinking of others and putting them before what we want. God wants to hear the things on our heart, but the awesome thing about God is that He knows when to tell us no for our benefit. And when we ask according to His will instead of ours, that’s what He loves to hear! “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:  And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” 1 John 5:14-15

We are not in control, but we sure like to act like it. I know I do. Once I really started to grasp that God is sovereign and that He really is looking out for my best interests, I think that’s when I started to realize that He’s blessed me with what I have and He could just as quickly take it all away, if He wanted to. That’s when I began to be more thankful that He is in control because, if I was steering my life, I’d already be off in a ditch somewhere! 

Lastly, understanding that God has already laid out my future was something I had to come to grips with. I get really anxious about what my future is going to be, where God is going to have me, who He’s going to have me marry, things like that. But the more and more that I worried about that kind of stuff, the more I realized it wasn’t getting me anywhere. All it was doing was making me more anxious and more desperate to know those things. I wasn’t practicing patience. I wanted to know so badly my future that I was just praying the same things over and over, expecting a quick response, when God was saying, “Be patient I’ve got this, bro.” Probably not in those exact words but you get the idea. It wasn’t till I started focusing on God and just praying for His plan and His will that I really started to have peace about truly trusting Him with everything. I took the selfish prayers and turned them into prayers that God would do His will and that, when that time came for those things to happen, that I would be willing and open to do whatever He wants me to do or go wherever He wants me to go. 

When it all comes down to it, I still have plenty of work to do. But we all do. I’m just thankful that I am focusing more on giving all my cares and worries to God and truly letting Him have control and truly seeking out His plan. He has truly given me a peace that surpasses all understanding! I know that whatever comes next, He’s got me! 

Wesley is a part of the CBM Internship program, which exists to encourage young people to experience missions! To learn more about the CBM Internship program click www.childrensbibleministries.net/internships.

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