“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” – Luke 22:42

I’ve always been a planner. From a very young age, there was just something powerful about having a desire or need and then coming up with a strategy to get from A to Z. I had an innate ability to lock in on a goal and go after it until it got accomplished. And I relished that. That is until I went through a season where God was quite literally ruining my plans to exchange them for His plans for my life. After years of setting goals and accomplishing them, as I began to pray and ask God to make me more like His Son, I didn’t think He would start by thwarting my meticulously strategized dreams and aspirations. I remember being so frustrated during that season, wondering if God was punishing me for something. As I grew closer to Him, I realized that He was answering my prayer request to make me more like Jesus by teaching me to surrender and submit to His will. I learned from experience that following God requires an abundance of flexibility. I also learned that His plans are always better than my own.

Perhaps you can relate. Maybe you’ve also experienced frustration because certain areas of your life haven’t always gone as you hoped they would. Jesus could certainly relate. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He was in deep distress, so much so that the Bible says He sweat blood. He earnestly did not want to have to die such a brutal death on the cross if there was another option. He pleaded with the Lord for an alternative and since He experienced the full range of human emotions, I can only imagine that He must’ve felt disappointment when the answer was no. However, since He was fully committed to doing the will of His Heavenly Father, He exchanged His desires for His Father’s despite hoping for a different option. What He modeled for us was that the reward of surrendering to God’s will for our lives far outweighs the disappointment that we might experience along the way. Being a true follower of Jesus Christ requires the same level of obedience from us. Living an agile life means we surrender all of our plans to the Lord for Him to approve, veto, and/or re-prioritize. In the same way that Jesus was rewarded for His obedience, we’ll receive our reward as well when we surrender our lives to the Lord.