"God Makes Us What We're Not"

I heard this statement today while listening to a short video about the 'shooting' of a pivotal scene in the app series, "The Chosen." I hope you've heard of it and, even better, been watching it! The series is not unlike a historic novel. Each episode sort of fills in the backstories on how, in the Gospels, various pericopes came to pass. A pericope is each individual story we read in the New Testament. Usually there is a heading above each one, like "the man born blind," or "Jesus feeds the 5,000." You get the idea. 
Those backstories in "The Chosen" are all imagined, but beautifully so. Included are Old Testament vignettes to place the words and actions of Jesus and His followers in context. The two Testaments should always be considered together. Not just in the series. In our lives, too. 
The scene that was featured in the video today was when Jesus tells Peter and his associates (some of the other soon-to-be apostles) to cast their nets off the sides of their boats, even though they have been fishing all night and caught nothing. "The miracle of the fishes," a nice pericope title, ends with Jesus telling the apostles to follow Him, and He will make them fishers of people. But not before Peter falls at the feet of Jesus and begs him to "depart from me, for I am a sinful man." It is done so naturally and dramatically in the show. 
The director and creator of the series, and also one of the writers (such talent!) is Dallas Jenkins. He is the one who uttered the title of this entry today. And it is such a profound and a true statement. We can do nothing on our own. It is all gift from our Creator. But the more we get to know the Lord, the more we realize that we have no control. The more we come to love the Lord, the more control we want to give Him.
Whether you are a mother or not, our tendency is to want to protect and control the lives of our children so that we can protect them, keep them from harm. Why? Because we love them and want what's best for them. And that is just as true for the birth mother who places her child for adoption as every other mom. Let us all pray for the moms with enough courage and with that much love for their babies, to give up control. These birth moms trust God enough to let Him "make them what they're not."
May we all trust God enough, whatever our circumstances. Let us trust God that much.