Surrender II

One thing about surrender is that it gets more difficult. God takes it deeper. You give your heart to him, you surrender your life, job, kids, home, finances, reputation, thoughts, desires, future, will, hopes - everything - to him, then you realize one day that he desires more. That what you have already surrendered to him isn't all that he wants from you. He wants more. You haven't surrendered all to him.

You start to realize that you keep fighting him. Your self, your human nature, doesn't want to be surrendered to him. It doesn't want to be his or to be given to him. It fights to the death to remain alive, and you begin to struggle between your heart's desire to be totally his and your flesh's desire to belong only to yourself, to be totally in control of you. At first you don't even realize that you are struggling, and when you do, you couldn't say what you are struggling against.

Your self has protected you for so long. Your mind has helped keep you safe and secure and fed. It tells you that without it, you would starve, lose your loved ones, fail at your job, be vulnerable, lonely, poor, naked, and wretched.

Your heart is deceitfully wicked. That is what God's word says. Your heart - your flesh - your sinful nature, it wants more than anything to keep itself alive, but that is what is keeping you from an intimate relationship with the Lord. And he wants to destroy anything that comes between you and him. (Isn't that wonderful?) Self must die.

The truth is, we really are poor, naked, wretched, and blind. God's word says so. He also tells us that we must give up our lives to gain true life. And one day in this journey of surrender to God, you will come to the place where you can't stand the struggle any more. You will just lay with your face in the dirt and you will wave the white flag and say, "I give up. I can't do this anymore. I'm tired of fighting you. I'm tired of the struggle." Then, God moves in.

He comes alongside you and lifts you up, and he begins the work in you that he has been leading you to. He starts to free you from your own control over your life, he begins to soften your heart so you can love others and receive their love, he opens your eyes to his truths and his way and his light, he opens your ears to hear his voice, and you begin to know what his will and his purpose is for you in your life. There is so much he begins to do here, and you start to see the truth that God really does resist the proud and exalt the humble.

You know that giving in, waving that flag in surrender, was what he was waiting for. Not doing it was what was keeping you from going forward in your relationship with him. And when you realize that you had to give in, you had to surrender, you are so thankful that he kept his hand on you until you broke. He leads you into surrender and brokenness, and, although those words terrify you and make you want to crawl in bed and pull the sheets over your head, you begin to see that this is his way. This is the way to follow.

This is the way to Christ. This is the way to freedom and becoming like Jesus. This is the way to being set free of those things in your life that you are embarrassed of, those things that you do that you know are sinful and that you can't stop doing. This is the way to healing those hurts in your heart that keep you hard towards others, that make you fearful to connect, and then lonely because you don't and can't. This is where God starts to be God in your life and you begin to surrender to just being his child.

The first step of surrender is giving your "stuff" to God. You give him your heart, yes, but you give it along with the things that surround you or that make up your life. This second stage is more difficult because he is asking you to surrender your "self" to him, the part of you that makes up you. But it is good. So good. Stop struggling against him and wave the white flag. He has so many, many good things that he wants to do in your life.

Father, thank you for the walk. Thank you for surrender and humility. And thank you for waiting and not giving up until we waved that flag of surrender, until we stopped fighting you and your ways and gave in to them. Thank you that you are real and that you wait on us to turn to you so we can see your goodness, your mercy, your faithfulness, and your unfailing love. Thank you, Lord, above all, for your acceptance of us, even when we are at our worst. You don't wait for us to become better; you begin to show your love for us before we even realize how truly bad we are. It is when we are at our worst that you begin to move into our lives and draw us to yourself. Thank you for loving us, even though we don't deserve it, and thank you for choosing us and not letting us go. Amen

Surrender

Part of surrender is knowing who you are surrendering to. Another part is understanding exactly what surrender is.

At first I thought of surrender as handing over something to someone else. But the Lord is faithful, and he takes us into deeper understanding. His word says that his ways aren't our ways and his thoughts aren't our thoughts; he says that we are to not lean on our own understanding. And we know that nothing is impossible for him.

Learning how to not lean on what we know or what we understand is an early experience with surrender. We have to surrender our control, surrender our trust, give over our present and our future into His hands. We have to come to the place where we trust God enough to believe that if we surrender our needs, our fears -- everything in our life -- to him, he will protect us, he will provide for us, he will deliver us from those things that we have been so used to taking care of ourselves.

God asks us to love him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. To love him in this way causes us to surrender everything to him. If we don't, we are loving something other then him (usually ourselves). When we agree to do this great thing that he asks, we learn that we cannot without the help of his Spirit. When we turn to him and ask for help, he takes us into a deeper relationship with him so that we can come to know him so intimately that we can release all control to him. He shows us his character: his faithfulness, his pure love, his grace and mercy, his acceptance and security, his power and authority. He comes into our lives in ways that challenge our previous knowledge of who he is and that cause us to come to see him in true light. He is loving, he is pure and holy, he is trustworthy! We learn so much about him that we come to know that it would be foolish to not surrender ourselves wholly to him, to not give him total control of our lives.

When we come to know the Lord in deeper ways, we also come to the place where he asks us to surrender and we know that we cannot say no. Our answer is "yes, Lord!" We might struggle with this decision, but deep inside we know that we have no other choice but to go with him. To go with the truth. He is the way, and surrender is the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Praise you, Father, for revealing yourself to us. Thank you that you love us so much that you request of us things that bring us closer to you. May your Spirit be our guide and our counsel. May your light so shine on us that the path is bright and the decision clear. Please give us the strength to be willing to obey and follow you. Glorify yourself through us as we glorify you and your ways. Amen.