Submitted by Lara Cook
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its
roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain
green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear
fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8
There is such sweet
relief in embracing an I Surrender All
mentality when we really turn things over to God. The key is really turning things over to God, completely. If we truly want to surrender all to God,
that means we have to surrender our everything and take His anything.
Sometimes we bring our everything to God with stipulations. We tie our offerings up in a neat little
package of hopes and dreams - and fears - and hand it over saying “Here you go, and this is exactly how I want it to be.” We want Him to wrap His holy bubble wrap around
our people and plans so that no harm will come and our everything will go down
exactly as we requested. This is not
true surrender.
True surrender to God means that we are willing to go where
He wants us to go, stay where He wants us to stay and accept what He wants us
to accept. That means when the diagnosis
comes back different than we expected, we may not be ok with it, but we still
trust. When the job doesn’t pan out,
when the money doesn’t come in, or when plans don’t go the way we think they
should, we still trust. Letting go in
surrender is hard but sometimes accepting what comes back is even harder. Sometimes it involves climbing mountains of
adversity and forging rivers of sorrow. But for every mountain we climb and every river
we forge, God is with us every step of the way.
We may find ourselves saying to God “This is not what I meant” when we get unexpected results from our
surrender. It is like praying for
patience and, of course, on that particular day there are endless circumstances
that come our way to test our patience.
It feels like it is all happening on purpose, that God is hurling as
many things at us as He can to test us.
In reality, we know that is not the truth. When we surrender to God and in return we get
mountains and rivers, it feels personal.
Sometimes the answer comes with pain and sadness, even in surrender to
God. It doesn’t make us exempt, but it
does make us equipped.
Surrender is a war term which usually means giving up – maybe
becoming a prisoner of war. We can
become a prisoner of war if we surrender to the hopelessness and sadness that
can come with a hard answer from God.
This is not God’s desire for us in surrender. Surrender means victory from hopelessness and
sadness, and it also means freedom. Not
captivity. We can escape captivity to
the freedom of surrender through obedience, trust, and faith. Whatever comes, whatever the anything is that we get back when we
surrender it all to God, if we go forth in obedience, climb the mountains and
forge the rivers, we can be victorious.
Scripture to Claim:
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is
the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6