Joyful Surrender : The Season I Don’t Want to Be In

There’s something deeply humbling about realizing you can love God, pray, seek wisdom, and still not see something coming.

I think for a long time I quietly believed discernment meant I should always know. Always catch the red flags. Always sense the shift before the disruption happened. And if I missed it, then maybe I failed somewhere spiritually.

But lately, God has been gently undoing that thinking in me.

“Just because things don’t go as planned doesn’t mean it interrupts God’s plan.”

That thought has been sitting heavy on my heart.

Because if I’m honest, I’m a planner. Very type A. I like structure. Timelines. Predictability. I feel safest when I know what’s happening, where it’s going, and how it’s supposed to work out. I like clarity. I like movement. I like fixing things quickly.

And if I’m being even more honest… I can also be impatient & impulsive.

I don’t always handle disruptions well.

When something unexpected happens, my instinct is usually to react immediately. To solve it. Control it. Interpret it quickly. Do something with it before I fully process it.

But Scripture keeps showing me that not every disruption is meant to be handled the same way.

In Mark 6:1-6, Jesus returns to His hometown. The people were amazed at first… and then offended.

That part really stayed with me.

The issue wasn’t Jesus’ wisdom. The issue was their inability to update their understanding of who He was. Their familiarity with Him distorted their perception of Him.

And honestly, I think we do that sometimes with God too.

We create expectations for how He should move, how quickly He should answer, what discernment should feel like, what growth should look like… and when reality doesn’t match our internal timeline, we panic.

But Deuteronomy 29:29 reminds us:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God…” — Deuteronomy 29:29

Meaning there will always be things outside of my understanding. Outside of my timing. Outside of my ability to predict.

And maybe that’s not deficiency.

Maybe that’s humanity.

There are three ways we tend to handle disruptions.

The culture’s way.

The church’s way.

And the Kingdom’s way.

The culture’s way is emotional reactivity.

Everything becomes urgent. Emotional overwhelm turns into impulsive decisions. Small disruptions become full disasters because we respond before we process.

We see this in Saul in 1 Samuel 13:11-14. Saul “felt compelled” because Samuel didn’t arrive within his expected timeframe. So he took matters into his own hands.

And what struck me was realizing Saul didn’t lose the kingdom because of immorality.

He lost it because of impulsiveness.

Whew.

That convicted me a little.

Because how many times have I mistaken urgency for wisdom?

How many times have I forced movement because silence made me uncomfortable?

Then there’s the church’s way.

Spiritual bypassing.

Using spiritual language to avoid emotional honesty and personal responsibility.

Pretending we’re “waiting on God” when really we’re just paralyzed by fear.

Calling passivity peace.

Avoiding grief, conflict, disappointment, or accountability by hiding behind spiritual phrases.

Jeremiah 6:14 says:

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.” — Jeremiah 6:14

That verse reminds me that healing requires honesty. God never asked us to fake peace. He invites us into real transformation, not performance.

But then there’s the Kingdom’s way.

Sanctified pivoting.

The ability to acknowledge the disruption without abandoning your devotion.

That phrase honestly changed something in me.

Because following God doesn’t mean life unfolds exactly how I planned it. It means learning how to adjust direction without losing trust.

It means I can say:

“This hurts.”

“This confused me.”

“I didn’t expect this.”

“I wish this looked different.”

…while still believing God is faithful.

I think sometimes we carry unbiblical expectations of discernment. We expect ourselves to have God-level awareness. We think maturity means never misreading people, never getting hurt, never feeling disappointed, never missing signs.

But even symptoms don’t always mean the same thing.

You may not always know whether someone is Peter or Judas until after.

And honestly, that realization has brought me a weird kind of peace.

Because maybe the goal isn’t becoming hyper-vigilant.

Maybe the goal is becoming deeply rooted.

Rooted enough that even when something catches me off guard, I still trust God with the outcome.

Lately, I’ve been learning that surrender sometimes looks less like confidence and more like staying soft when you’d rather become controlling.

And maybe that’s where I’m at right now.

Learning how to live joyfully in the season I’m in instead of obsessively trying to escape it.

Learning that delayed answers are not always denied ones.

Learning that God is still good even when I don’t fully understand what He’s doing.

So lately my prayer has been simple:

Holy Spirit, help me live joyfully in the season I’m in.

Help me surrender to the seasons I didn’t want.

Help me stop carrying God-weight that was never mine to hold.

And help me trust that even what I didn’t see coming is still somehow held safely in Your hands.