Give Up!

One of the things/ideas/themes I’ve been thinking and processing a lot the past year or so is surrender. Of course, as a believer and follower of Jesus, surrender is (or at least should be) a constant theme in walking out faith. So, I’ve made my first point without even getting to main idea of this post. Said idea is that of my own personal encounter lately with surrender.

I recently moved to China. Here’s my process of surrender put in the form of a list for the sake of time, and in an effort to get back to that original point.

*Saying yes to God to go at all… surrendering my will to His.
*Having said yes, but having no plan or place to go…surrending my way to His.
*Preparing to go….surrendering my will to His again and again and again and…well you get it.
*Leaving…surrendering my will, my way and my life as I knew it to Him.

So here I am living in China, and guess what? Yup! The surrender stuff just keeps coming like a hurricane that passes overhead, but it’s floodwaters continue to rise over the days following. I have to be honest and share this. I must have thought that in leaving for China I had past the “hardest” part of surrender in this whole process. With everything it took to leave (that “big” list above), maybe somewhere in my mind I thought, “Well...that should do it.” This came to my awareness because recently I found myself thinking that all this surrender “stuff” has to end some time soon! “Oh boy!” I thought as I pondered what I just been faced with in my own heart. With the continued surrender of my heart, my ways, my ideas, my dreams, my will, the list could go on, I found more.

I found more of Him, but I also found more that I needed to surrender. Fortunately, but painfully, I found more parts of my heart and life that I needed to lay down. I found pride hidden in a dark corner of my heart. I found a lack of hope and belief in an ignored part of my heart. I found self-reliance in an avoided part of my heart. The list could go on, but the important and great part was finding more of Jesus! I found His grace, mercy, compassion, truth and wisdom in the process of surrendering all of the aforementioned and more. What I found to be of most value was His love. In surrender, I found His love for me was greater, deeper, overwhelming and unchanging, and this has (and continues to) changed me forever.

I gave up! I gave up my pride. I gave up my way. I gave up my will. I still have to give up these things daily. I give up my heart everyday, and I’ve found that surrender is the path to love that changes me forever.