Hand Yourselves Over to God
What sort of God we want? The vast majority of men and women want God who is sort of a store keeper ready to supply them all those things for which they send in a requisition, the wealth of the world, its pleasures and power.
So long as God gives them what they want, God is good, God is loving, God is wise, and there is none like unto Him. But the moment He refuses to oblige, He becomes a cruel God, unjust and unkind. His very existence is denied.
The God of the majority of us is a 'servant' God ready to do our bidding, eager to satisfy our cravings and caprices the moment they arise.
In plain word, we do not want God's Will to be done. What we desire is that our will should be done. And the more I succeed in the doing of my will, the more restless do I grow, the more unhappy and miserable. It is only God's Will that can restore harmony and order. Until I learn to submit to the will of God, even if I reach out to the moon and conquer the stars, I shall but continue to wander from restlessness to restlessness.
What we need is not this, that or any other thing. What we urgently require is a divine adjustment. At some time or the other this truth dimly dawns on our consciousness. Pressed hard by circumstances, surrounded on all sides by trials and temptations, failures and frustrations, we feel like turning to God as the only remedy. But we are afraid to leave all things in His Hands for fear of what He may do.
We do not know what God may do if we surrender to Him. To surrender ourselves to Him is to accept His Will. We are not yet prepared to do so. We still want our wills to be done. Our prayers in effect are something like this, "O Lord who art All-powerful! Listen to my cry. Rush to my rescue and grant me all that I ask!"
And so we keep on chasing shadows. Like butterflies we flit from one sensation to another, in a vain search of that true happiness which is not obtained until we return to God. O traveller who art weary with thy wanderings, return to thy Homeland! Away from thy Home there is no rest. And thy Home is God.
He who stands still in the Lord finds everything in the Lord. The things he pursued and which eluded him, now come running to him. He desires them no longer. He seeks them no more. But they come to him of their own volition. He needs nothing. He has attained to the stage where his hunger has been appeased and his thirst has been quenched.
They who are united with the Lord are happy, indeed. Their wills are merged with the Will Divine. They desire naught but what the Lord wills. They have broken the chains of bondage: they are attached to none: the Lord is their sheet-anchor!
The one thing needful is to focus the mind on God, to live in His presence and to dedicate ourselves to Him. By doing so we will not, of course, be free from all faults. If it is God's Will that human nature should be frail, I should, for the love of God, accept my faults, finding comfort in the thought that will teach me to be humble, no one reached God except on the path of humility. Humility, by revealing to us what we are, teaches us that of ourselves we can do nothing: for we are nothing. All the good that is done by God. Humility, therefore, means utter surrender to God and to God alone.
The best thing that man can do is to hand himself over to God, to accept everything including disgrace and disease, trouble and tribulation, misfortune and misery, as coming from God. Whatever comes from God is good: it cometh to purify. Therefore rejoice in every situation and circumstance of life, giving gratitude to Him whose works are ever the works of mercy.
The one essential mark of the man who loves God, is that he bears joyfully all the suffering and pain that God sends him. He who become a captive of love lives a life of surrender to God: in this surrender is true freedom. Watch, therefore, for the ring of love and when it closes in on you, feel happy, for in your captivity you will have found the freedom of the truly free. Then in your heart you will hear songs of rejoicing. And each day will bring you thrills of joy.
Love God with all your heart and soul. Talk to Him. Think of Him. Rest in Him. In the midst of your daily work, turn to Him, again and again. These glad turnings of a loving and grateful heart are your best prayers to God.
