Us VS God

• Many a times, we get into a struggle with God. Its not that we have grown cold in our faith, its not that we are losing our faith, its just that some priorities get in front of our God. And these priorities might not be bad. They don't have to be drinking, smoking, clubbing, gambling etc. They can be healthy activites such as simple work or studies. I take one example: we say we cannot go for a church activity because exams are near and we have to study. Reasonable. Logical. Acceptable. Thats for the "exams are near and we have to study" part. Yet, by doing this, we are quite showing that we do not trust that God can pull us through, and we are simply doing what we can by ourselves to help ourselves. Yes, we still pray that God can help us, but we are sacrificing time that used to be set for God to be used for our studies, just to be a fail-safe.
• I am not saying that studying for exams is wrong. It is important to study for exams. It is definitely needed to prepare ourselves for the exams. However, we ask ourselves one question - will God help us more? Or will our own studying help us more? If we have faith in God, then of course we will choose the former one. Note, I am not saying that we do not need to study, thats coz God only helps those who helps themselves. What I am saying is that why do we want to sacrifice time that used to be for God, to be used for our studying? How much can we exactly put into our head in that few hours that we decide to use for studying?
• Studying for exams is very logical. It is important. Yet many a times, God works in very illogical ways. I take the example of Joshua chapter 6 from the bible. The Israelites were told to march around the city of Jericho for six days, with priests and horns. Then on the 7th day, they will have to march 7 times around the city and sound a loud blast so that the city wall will fall. Ok, totally illogical here. Instead of charging straight into the city to attack, they are told to march around with all their men without doing anything? I am sure the enemies in Jericho must be laughing at them when they saw the march. "What clowns" they must have said. Yet, as we read on, we saw the walls of Jericho eventually fell as the Israelites did what they were told to. It is because God does not need to be logical to work things out. God just needs us to trust in Him.
• We must stay trusting to God always. It is very important. We see in 2 Samuel chapter 24 that David counted his men, just to see how strong he was. However, this angered the Lord and caused the city to be hit by a plague. In 2 Samuel 24:10, we see that David actually exclaimed that he had sinned greatly. Why? Seeing how mighty your army is very logical thing to do, what? Why is it a sin leh? Well, it is simply because by doing that, David is seeing how powerful he is capable on his own, and is relying less on God. Isn't this the same thing when we decide that we need to rely on our own strength rather than relying on God for our studies?
• Lets get this straight. I am not saying that we should all give up our studies and just go serve God everyday. No. I am just saying that even when we need to make more time for studies, that time cannot come from God's time. We need to have faith that when we actually spend our time to serve God, God will help us even more and pull us to even greater heights. That is the faith that we must have. Yes, studying on our own will only get us so far, thats coz its still our humanly abilities. But studying and relying on God will get us beyond our limits, thats coz the strength of God is limitless and His arms never fails to reach us when we trust in Him.