On Wednesday I arrived to the bus station to catch my bus home and saw that the bus I normally take was going to be a 20-minute wait. But I saw that there was another bus that goes to my exact bus stop. I’m not a fan of patience, but over the years God has been working on me to instill one of His fruits- “patience.” So while I didn’t patiently wait for the 20-minute bus, I did decide to try this other bus. As we started rolling it began to take a different route than my usual bus. I began to feel uncomfortable with this new route because I didn’t know the way. But I had to surrender my thoughts and trust the bus driver.

Life has many uncertainties- that’s its certainty. But Jesus is certain and because He is certain we can trust when He’s driving the bus. But, in order to trust Him we must surrender. The bus I decided to hop on, it’s driver and I couldn’t both sit in the driver seat. And just like with God, Him and “we” cannot sit in the driver seat of the route He has planned for our lives.

Oftentimes in life’s challenges, when we’re frustrated at why our situation hasn’t changed, it’s because we have been driving the bus. And then we get mad at God because 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years has passed and the job we want hasn’t come, the spouse hasn’t come, the baby hasn’t come, or whatever it is. Sure, God uses all that time to teach us patience, to change us on some other areas of our lives, to teach us to trust Him, or to set things in order for what we’re hoping for. But above all that God is looking for surrender. He’s looking for us to turn over what seems impossible in our situation, or what seems unfamiliar solely to Him.

We are not meant to be stressed about the bus route or how we’re going to get home (Matthew 11:30). But, we are meant to surrender the fact that we don’t know everything, acknowledge that we desperately need God to guide us, and move to the back of the bus while our Heavenly Father drives. He’s looking for a simple thing: surrender. When we surrender we will begin to see our situation change.

Happy Friday!