He Is God And We Are Not

My goal in writing this book is that by the end of it you will be aware of the idea that He is God and we are not.  There are just certain things that need to be left up to Him as our great and powerful creator.  You will see what happens when we as humans try to take matters into our own hands, and how God’s plan for us will always be better than our own.

This past summer of 2013 I knew that I had to get a job.  I had taken on the role of “every parents worst nightmare” I was 16 and about to turn 17 that summer.  Never had I officially worked for money under employment a day in my life.  Sure I had worked every now and then with my dad doing electrical work for his self-employed business, but its not the same.  That was cool while while it lasted, and my parents for the time being, stopped bugging me about getting a job.  Although, like most things my parents and I tried to do together, it...well lets just say it didn't work out.  Now I was back at the top of the “worst teenager ever” list.  So with zero work experience under my belt I leaped into applying for jobs in hopes of winning a spot on the “best teenager ever” list.  If there even is such a thing. Nevertheless, I was determined to make my parents proud.

I would come home from school most days empty handed with nothing to show for my search for a job, but in return I received a, “how was your day at school sweetie?” sympathetic remark from my mom.  I would try to respond as nicely as possible explaining that every single day of High School will always produce the same answer, “it was good.”  And we would go our separate ways (usually in the same room because you can’t really go anywhere in our first century “one room school house” home to get away from people).  Although on the days, the few days, that I decided to venture out and pick up an application to bring home and fill out, the conversation would still agonizingly begin with, “Hey sweetie, how was school?” As if she had forgotten our extensive conversation the day before about how every single day of High School will be exactly the same.  Only this time she would follow up with an uplifting comment about how even if I don’t get the job I had decided to apply to that day, God was going to make it all work out in the end, and I believed that. However God showed me that my level of believing in Him was about as low as a freshly cut blade of grass, which based on what happened next wasn't enough.  What I've found is that there’s no “there” with God.  In other words, there’s no point in your life where you’re going to say, “this is as close to God as I’m going to get”.  There will always be another step of faith that God gives you.  Were just blinded from this because we’re already so far from where God wants us to be with Him that we can't see where He wants us to be.  Every time we grow in faith, a new opportunity to grow arises.  However, instead of progressing in faith we end up falling behind a few steps, so we’re never actually running toward Him 100%!  I will tell you though that once I made the personal decision to leave my old ways behind and to start running toward what He truly wants, I got lost in His love for me.  Everything else seemed to not matter and all I wanted to do was grow in my trust with Him and better our relationship.

For about February to April, I continued scarcely bringing home applications that I half knew I wouldn't get, and my parents fully knew I wouldn't try to get.  Still barely putting my trust in God and going through the motions of what I thought God wanted me to do.  By now my name was probably on the, “most likely to be living at home until I am thirty” list. And I felt the tension!  My parents wanted me to get a job, and that was it.  That usually became the main topic of debate the moment I got home from school along with “hey sweetie, how was your day?” which I loved just about as much.

Now I don't want you to think I went through this stage without any prayer or guidance from God.  I tried my best to approach God every single day, although my selfish attitude, along with our television and media centered world often sucked me out of being in the presence of God, and put me in proximity to Him.  There is a difference, in case you were wondering.  You can be just around God, or in proximity to him; or you can be fully surrendered to Him and truly be in the presence of Him.  In this state of being in His presence you’re at a whole new level with God; you start to see what He really wants for you and not what you think He wants for you.  Society teaches us to do things on our own and how to make our own goals. Usually otherwise someone else will use us to better their goals.  So I took things into my own hands and my prayers began sounding like “God please give me the job I applied at yesterday; please provide a way for this job to work out; God it would be really cool if I could work at this place.”  And I would continue praying like this almost every night asking God to take what I had done and make it happen.  God showed me the very hard way that this was actually me trying to do His job for Him, and that’s not ok.

Back in January of that year I had been offered a job from my friend Aaron who worked at Spring Hill Day Camps.  It’s a childrens christian camp where you travel around Michigan spending each week at different churches.  I won’t go into detail about exactly what the camp is, but I had just heard a lot of great things from friends that worked there saying how great and life changing the camp was, but I decided to turn it down.  I felt that if I were to get a job in February or sooner I wouldn't be able to or feel right about quitting so I could do another job.  Plus there would be football workouts all summer and it would basically make me have to quit, and I really liked playing.

So from there it got me to the end of the school year and I still did not have a job.  I began to kick myself about not taking the job at Spring Hill because by now it was too late.  I called Aaron and asked him if there was any possible way it could work out to where I could work there for the summer.  He said no and that I might be able to sign midsummer once they figure out if they end up needing more counselors.  Again doing God’s job for Him, I decided to turn down the offer that really wasn't even an offer but a possibility.

I felt crushed and defeated as a Christ follower because of my lack of focus on God’s will.  If only I had just accepted the initial job offer back in January I would have moved off the “living at home till you’re thirty” list, which after that was looking more like forty.  God really opened my eyes to all the things I did wrong and for one it was how I prayed.  Hopefully you caught what was wrong with the way I was praying.  I would basically say, “Alright God, I’ll pick the job and you work your magic and make it happen.” No! Big smack in the face from God after I realized that, and also a greater smack in the face to God that I was trying to do His job. God will provide a will and a way for you and I to do anything and everything He knows will best glorify Him.  I can just see what God must have been saying, “Well He wants to do my job. Cool, he can try and I’ll let that be the job he’s been praying for.”  Ah how dumb I was! If you get one thing from my failure let it be that we can not do God’s job, and when we try, He’ll let us try, but we’ll fail miserably because we can do nothing without Him.

Like I stated in the beginning, there are some things that are suited for humans and when others just need to be left up to God.  When we try to do these things specifically ascribed to God we fail and we feel the punishment because of it.  Of course I was very ashamed that I didn't get a job all that time and times were stressful.  I could have just gotten one if I had listened to God, but I also learned to never try and be God.  My punishment was Him actually letting me do what I was trying to do.  God let me do His job to humble me and show me that nothing is possible without Him. One of my favorite verses in the bible is John 15:5 which says, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.  Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” He is God and we are not, let the man do His job! God wins.

Author's Note

I edited this and ended up turning it in for my final exam for my Creative Writing class. I got a 97% on it so I hope you like it!

Reviews

[The Nude Writer]

Yay God Wins! Hehe. This was a pleasure to read :) this had a great flow and was very fun. Loved it

[❤ Maggie ❤..]

Wow. This was so inspiring. It actually really did open my eyes to how many times I end up "doing God's job" when really, He's the one that's in control. Well done with this writing, this was awesome.