Resisting God

Why do we fight and struggle against the very One who made us and the only One who really and truly wants our best? Why do we resist His working in our lives? I think deep down it is a power struggle. We want control of our own lives, our own destinies. It's been said that "surrender is the highest act of the will." We have no greater battle in life than the battle with self. We resist God because in our human, finite minds, we think we know better for us than He does. We think we can do a better job running our lives than He can. We think we can get what we want on our own and we fear if we surrender we will have to wait or settle for something other than our hearts' desire. What we fail to realize is that God's best for us is so much better than what our hearts can even imagine. So, we go on holding on to our dreams and desires instead of letting God take them, and not shatter them, but mold them to fit His will for us. Not all desires are bad. Desire is not the sin. The sin comes when rather than surrendering that desire to God, we seek to fulfill it ourselves. What we end up with is a cheap imitation of what we really wanted and a broken heart about the fact that it fails to satisfy. Resisting God's best for us will never bring about the joy and fulfillment that can be ours by surrendering to His will. The bottom line is that lack of surrender is sin. Sin will steal your joy.
While we are talking about sin, this is another area where we resist God's working in our lives. We have the Scriptures and they are clear about what sin is and what actions in our lives qualify as sin. So, why do we continue to succomb to sin? I think the answer is fear. We are afraid that we must change on our own and we know from experience that we will fail in the attempt. What we don't realize is that getting rid of sin in our lives is God's job. He wants to give us clean hands and pure hearts, but we simply don't let Him. No one can forgive and transform a life but God. Surrendering our wills to Him allows him to do that. We think repentance is a long process where we have to continually battle our sin and fall on our faces over and over in the effort to change our behaviors. Repent simply means to turn around. There's not even any forward progress in the motion. It is just a spin, a 180. All we have to do is turn our hearts to God and set our sins at His feet. Let Him have them. He will fix us Himself. Every person who has tried to help himself has failed. Every person who has thrown up his hands and said "I can't do it myself" has found the joy and peace of God stepping in and saying, "Finally. Let me do it for you."
We resist God because we don't trust God. We don't trust God because we don't really know God. We don't really know God because we don't take the time to get to know Him. So, the key to learning the art of surrender is getting to know God. Invest in your relationship with God. Give Him the opportunity to prove His love for you and His power over your sin. At the end of the day, He will do a much better job of running your life than you could.