Surrender

Last night, I was doing some philosophy reading. Suddenly, my ADD kicked in and my attention diverted to my future. I started to think about how difficult my upper division math classes will be, if I will graduate on time (cause for some reason graduating later is frowned upon, right?), thinking about possible internships, and ultimately my future career. It sucks because whenever I start thinking about the future, I panic. I got out a few sheets of paper, opened up the list of classes offered for Winter quarter, and I literally started to plan for my future classes for a good 2-3 hours. I was also considering changing my major from pure mathematics to mathematics/economics. Because of this, I kind of planned for both routes, seeing which upper division classes seem more enjoyable (or doable). Just thinking about taking 4 upper division math classes gave me a head ache. I love math, but four is a lot.

A few hours before I did all of this planning, I sent out an email to the LA guys small group encouraging them to constantly be in prayer. It's got to be habitual. Especially during the middle of the week when you're suffocating from all the workload and studying, it helps so much to just stop what you're doing, take a deep breath, and spend a minute or two to just pray. It's also good to pray right before you study--it reminds you that God should be your motivation to study. I don't know if it's psychological, or if it's the Holy Spirit working, but I feel more at ease and stress-relieved after a nice short prayer.

With that said, I remembered all of this today while I was waiting for my math discussion to start. Needless to say, I opened up the Bible to Proverbs 16, and the first line was: "The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD." Just from reading that particular verse, my shoulders felt lighter, I felt rejuvenated, and I basically just felt so comforted by God. It always confused me why some people favored the idea of being in control of their own lives. To me, the thought of controlling my own life through my imperfect efforts is just scary. How comforting is it that no matter what happens, that the Perfect and Powerful God is guiding us and that even if we go astray like sheep, the Good Shepherd always puts us in the right direction.

So? Did you pray today?

-Simon