If I can sum up what the Lord has been teaching me over this past year in one word, it would be dependency. It’s easy to say that as Christians we are dependent on God, but I never really knew what that looked like until the past few months. Going into my freshman year, I had no idea what to expect, and I was filled with big expectations and a filtered view of what I thought college would be. I guess I only focused on the good things that people told me about college and glazed over the difficult things: mountains of homework, roommate situations, friendship struggles, homesickness, and just adjusting to a totally new life away from home.
It was in these tough times that I really learned what dependency on God looked like. In the moments of tears and discouragement, I really dug into the reading the word and journaling, listening to my worship playlist, and making time for prayer. I felt a new sense of peace in those moments, because I stopped trying to satisfy myself and control my situations through worldly solutions, but instead turned to Him to calm me.
I’ve realized that dependency on Christ means turning to Him in every little thing. It’s learning to stop yourself in the spiral of negative thoughts and pray for a clear mind instead. It’s realizing that as much as you may want a certain thing to happen, like being friends with a certain person or getting a certain schedule, it’s God that is working in those situations for your good. It’s understanding that as much as you like to set goals/plans and be in control, every single detail is ultimately part of God’s plan.
This is something I’m definitely still learning and getting better at, and I also think it applies so well to the pandemic situation we are in right now. Amidst all the uncertainty and stress and anxiety, we need to learn commit to dependency on Christ. Classes are online, the job market is unknown, and anxiety is high. It’s in these times of uncertainty that we need to push away our desire for control and lean in to Christ and all that his love has to offer.
This is something I’m definitely not perfect at, and I’ll constantly be working on giving up control putting my plans in God’s hands. It’s a constant cycle of feeling like I can do it on my own and wanting to be in control, then having a realization that it is way too hard to do life by myself. It’s literally impossible. We were created to live for Christ and have him lead us into all the good things life has to offer, yet I so often get disappointed when the plans that I think are best for me don’t work out. I pray that I will be more aware of the times when I try to take the reins and be better at giving control to Christ.
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