Obedience and surrender

I was confronted yesterday with my own angry response to circumstances. My anger was my flesh's way of responding, not God's way of responding. I felt like I was in a battle. My motives were correct, and I was trying to be obedient to God and to my authority, but I was still missing something. This morning, I read this quote from my Prasso Bible Study.

Battles are a part of every life.

What we must realize is that the battle itself is not our problem.

Obedience and surrender are our problems.

God does not need me to fight his battle, he just needs me to be obedient. A quote from Oswald Chambers was included in the Prasso lesson, it says that "God does not make us holy in the sense that he makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched."

My friend Charity is always stressing to me that God wants to make us holy. That He is using our circumstances to accomplish that. When I can rest in that, it is easier to leave the battle to God, and concentrate on obedience and surrender. I recognize that even if I don't see with my eyes and hear with my ears what God is doing, I have to live by faith that God will keep his promises.