There are times in our lives that we face the ultimate test of what it means to honestly surrender ourselves to God. We surrender many times because we have made a mess of our lives and we need God to take back control of the mess. There are the surrenders we are willing to submit to because we need God to do something for us. There is a surrender that we eventually come to in life, the one or ones we don’t like to think about. I’m talking about the surrenders that hurt so bad, make no sense, and seem to contradict what God has even promised to us! The conflicts that leave you numb and quiet, the surrenders where there is no more conversation or fight and no more self discernment.

We sing “I Surrender All” when we accept Jesus into our lives, and we think this is where it all changes, where God flips the switch in us and we will always do what HE wills. Life is not that way. God is not that way.  HE is a God who gives us the freedom of choice, we get to choose between life choices and death or destructive choices. As we grow in understanding how much God loves us, we start to realize HE expects us to make more mature decisions and become more like HIM. That’s all good and fine with most of us, until the choices HE sets before us may cause us to delay our dreams or let go of them all together. I have found the closer I walk with God, the less my life looks the way I thought it would!

Yes, I have admitted it, my life looks nothing like I saw it in my “young mind”! This journey has taken me over, under, through, around, and even knocked the wind out of me! Some things were because of my choices, but as I grow older, many things I have experienced were because HE expects more surrender from me. We have heard people say,”be careful what you ask for in prayer”… it’s true, with most requests, and desire to grow, surrender seems to be the requirement to see God’s will manifest in our lives.

It is an uncomfortable place surrender. It is a posture of true humility and one’s resolve to please the one who knows us best, God. Surrender isn’t a cowards word, it is an act of strength which says, as I lay my opinion, dream, desire, fear, relationship, and life down, I trust God to give me the strength to walk in what lies ahead. The discomfort is only the awareness to the fact we are growing, and God is stretching and enlarging what HE has for us to do and be for HIM. You may not like where you are or what is being required of you now, but God will only bring you to the place mentally,emotionally and physically where HE desires you to be. Surrender is what Jesus did for us, can we not do that for him?