Surrender

 

Surrender is a funny thing. When you face it head on it can be monstrous. Like you are a tiny little white bunny and surrender is the biggest black beast you have ever seen, who is huffing and puffing behind you as he chases you through the woods. When I first thought of surrender I felt like that little white bunny and, naturally, I ran as fast as I could away from the beast and I was much too frightened to look back. However as I ran further and further away the panting behind me slowly lessened; more and more so until the day when, and imagine this for me, as a little older bunny, standing on its hind legs and all buff, I had the courage to turn around and realize that the beast behind me wasn’t really a beast at all, it wasn’t scary, it wasn’t huffing and puffing and about to blow my house down. Instead, he was much smaller than I was, the size of a butterfly if you will, that I was able to pick up between my own two paws.

                Now I realize that this is a completely bizarre way to picture surrender but I think you get the gist of what I am trying to say, that surrender is not as large and scary as we originally comprehend it to be. It will not overwhelm us and consume us. God will not let it. And if we hold fast in him, as we get further and further down our path with God, we will see just how small and beautiful surrender can really be.

                I remember when God first called me to surrender and trust him. I was completely unprepared to trust him, completely unable and unprepared to give anything of my selfish life up, I tend to like things just the way they are. I had a routine, a set schedule, and I was willing to do anything in my power to keep my life in the pretty and neat little packaged box I had made for it. The thing I didn’t know in the beginning was that life wasn’t meant to be confined to a box. God wasn’t meant to be confined to a box. He is glorious and magnificent and splendid and complex and endless and if we would just listen to him and follow him he is prepared to show us how to trade our little box in for the glories that lay just beyond the gates of heaven.

                I realize that up to this point I have been painting a kind of sweet picture of what it means to surrender and all the things you will receive in return if you are brave enough to make that move, and while all of the things I have said so far are true, they do not come along until a while into the process. Like I said in the beginning, when I was first asked to surrender I was terrified and I ran. I blatantly told God NO, I did not want to be a part of whatever plan he had the audacity to think was better than the one I had made for myself. I was convinced that the life I was living was good enough for me and that I would be able to continue living it without a hitch. Funny thing is, God doesn’t work, think, or do anything the way you or I do it and thankfully he put roadblocks on what I thought was my smoothly paved road. He continued to ask me to give up important things in my life. He started out small and built his way up to my biggest dream. Along the way he reminded me that each thing I was giving up was helping to further the kingdom of heaven and that the trust that I was building with him would help in that as well. However encouragements just tend to anger me at times, especially when I am doing things that I wish I didn’t have to. Every time after he asked me to give up something new I would stop talking to him completely, I would wallow in my own misery for a few weeks, then eventually get over my pride long enough to come back to him and surrender, be happy for a day, and then immediately be asked to give away another piece of me; As you can probably tell for yourselves, repeating that cycle is not an appetizing thought. But because I love God and because I kept telling myself that he was the most important thing in my life, that all I wanted to do was grow in him, because I kept telling myself that this time I was not going to give up I kept coming back for more.

                The process of surrender never gets easier. It doesn’t get more familiar nor does it ever get more appetizing. Being asked to surrender things and actually surrendering them are two completely different things that both come as a complete shock to the system. God never nicely says, “Hey, you know, if you could spare this one thing for me that would be great.” Instead he tells us just what he needs from us and expects it from us outright. The outcome though, the aftermath, continues to be the sweet prize at the end of the dark tunnel, the beautiful butterfly that we are able to pick up on the palm of our hand, one of the gifts that the Lord himself promises to us. There are verses like Jeremiah 29:11 were God gives us hope in saying, “For I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you future and a hope.” Or like how in Proverbs 1:33 he says, “But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear or harm.” God did not come to harm you, he does not live inside you to wreak you and make your life the worst he can manage but rather God came into this world to forgive you. He allowed his holy spirit to live inside you in order to make you more like him. In order to make you perfect, you are perfect in the eyes of the Lord, he looks at you and he see’s his son or his daughter, made in his image and washed clean by the blood of the cross. He knows each and every one of you, your struggles and your hardships, the ones that you don’t even like to talk to yourself about, the ones that you avoid, and the ones that seem to never be out of the way. God knows what he is doing, he knew you before you were born and he will know you long after your death and in every instance in between and because of this truth I encourage you to hold fast to hope. To take that leap of faith and surrender whatever it is God has been putting on your heart. But you will never know the sweet mercies God has for you, you will never experience them yourself if you continue to run. I cannot tell you to stop, you must come to that decision by yourself. All I can tell you is that God is worth it. And all I can do is urge you to trust him with everything that he gave you. Pray about, Read your word, Talk about it with friends, don’t do it alone, but just know God is worth it.