Surrender

I want to start out with a confession – surrender is not my strong suit. I’m one of the most stubborn people in the world. Another confession is that I have a hard time waiting. I wrote a post a while back on waiting; I should have read it before I acted rashly a couple of weeks ago. I’ll spare the details, but basically, I got another job to help with finances. Most of you would think that’s no big deal and I was acting responsibly. However, no matter how “logical” something seems, when God tells you to not do something, then you shouldn’t do it. Actually, I didn’t even ask God, I just did it. I was in training last week for this job and every time I went I got a sick feeling. I ignored it and went on thinking, “This isn’t what I want, but it’s something I have to do.” Then, Friday morning I went to Bible study. We were talking about the story of David when he went to the land of the Philistines to hide from Saul (1 Samuel 27). Mind you, God had protected David from Saul in the past, and David was anointed to be the next king. However, David stopped having faith in the promises of God. He panicked and reacted out of fear – much like I did. During this time (a year and a half), David wrote no Psalms; his disobedience and mistrust caused a chasm in his fellowship with the Lord. I was so convicted that I felt sick inside. Saturday morning (my last day of training), I called and told them I was not going to take the job. I felt a huge burden had been lifted off and I felt peace, a peace that I didn’t have the past couple of weeks. And, you know what? God provided another way for me to earn extra money to help with finances. Isn’t God good? Praise the Lord for His forgiveness, patience, mercy and grace on stubborn me!

I read a chapter on surrender in a book I’m currently reading. The author writes, “There is an unspoken fear in most of our hearts that surrendering our desires means waving the white flag of defeat and walking away from every dream we’ve ever had.” However, “Surrender doesn’t mean that we stop making our requests known to God… Surrender simply means that we give God the final choice, believing that He will be good… Sometimes, it’s hard for our little minds to fathom what could be better than our choice. We go through life not knowing what lies ahead for us. But our God is all knowing. He already knows how each detail of our lives will fit together. He knows how to answer our prayers in ways totally beyond our comprehension… Surrender is acknowledging our own limited understanding and trusting the all-knowing God to give us His best. It’s holding on to God’s promises and at the same time giving Him the right to unfold them in His perfect way and perfect time… Surrender makes our hearts open and ready to hear God’s call on our lives.”

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him.” Matthew 7:11

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1