A little devotion I wrote for a friend a while ago. :)
"I will never worship anyone but you! For how can I thank you enough for all you have done? I will surely fulfill my promises. For my deliverance come from the Lord alone." -Jonah 2:9
If God can deliver Jonah from the belly of a whale because Jonah put all of his trust and understanding into the Lord, then we should have faith that all the stories in the bible are true and God will certainly be able to deliver us from our hard times. We just constantly have to keep the cross the center of every single moment of every single day because if it weren't for Jesus's sacrifice, we wouldn't be the people we are today and we wouldn't have that prime example to follow.
They call us followers of Christ for a reason because He came and lived our way of living and died our way of dying and ascended into heaven like we are going to one day if we make our life like Jesus's and rely on God's strength and wisdom and knowledge alone. Jesus could've chosen not to follow God's plan for him but He didn't go astray and God followed through.
I realize more and more each day how my life is such a reflection of Jesus's life in the trials He went through and hard times He had but I haven't been giving my life to God as much as Jesus did so I can't expect the same results. I really can't control where my life is going but I can control where I am each day. I think the free will God has given us is really only a blessing until we have chosen to commit our lives to Christ and follow the plan God has for us and after we have done that the free will becomes more of a temptation that we should steer away from. When we give God complete control of our lives and trust that He has the best plan for us then in a way we give up that free will. Or we should want to give that up.
