On Surrender

…in this losing for Christ’s sake, there may be no exceptions on our part.

“Everything, Lord, except this one thing” will not do.” ~Corrie ten Boom

 



“I once heard a sermon by the Reverend Oswald Smith at a conference it Switzerland. The following made a deep impression on me. He held four books in his hands and asked, “Is everything on the altar? Have you lost your life for Christ’s sake, your money, your time, your family, your home?” He placed the four books on the table, “This is my money; this, my time; this, my family; this; my home. Yes, my money, all of it except a small savings account which I have laid aside for my vacation. So, not all of my money.” And he took one book from the table. “My home, yes, except that I cannot take the children of my sister who is ill. They are so unruly that I just can’t have them as guests in my home. So, not my home.” And he removed the second book from the table. “My time? Yes, it all belongs to the Lord. But my two weeks’ vacation? I have a right to that, and have already reserved a room at the hotel. So, not my time.” A third book disappeared. “My family, yes, but I have not allowed my daughter to become what she so eagerly wishes to be, a missionary. We have a large family, and she must stay at home to help her mother. So, not my family.” He picked up the fourth book. The altar was empty." (An excerpt from Amazing Love, by Corrie ten Boom)
 

 This is a painful subject for me. One God has been helping me through, and one that I still have a long way to go in. I yearn to serve God, but I know in my heart, that he will not use me unless I fully surrender to Him. And for me, that means trusting Him, and trust is something I struggle with.

To ask God for salvation meant admitting that I was a sinner. That was easy. To trust Him to do what he has promised was not so easy. I know He is capable of saving my soul from the hell that I deserve, but trusting that He would do so is another matter.

I am saved, I know that now. That is something God has dealt with me about. And it required this hard to come by trust. It required surrendering my fears and my what ifs, it required surrendering to His word rather than something I could see and touch and feel. Forsaking All, I Trust Him – the way I remember what faith is. And faith is surrendering to a hope in something or someone that there is no evidence of.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.

~Hebrews 11:1

Surrender, the act of yielding or resigning one's person or the possession of something, into the power of another.

To surrender to God means to give my all, and that means everything that I have or will have, to Him to do with what He pleases. That means my home, my time, my money, my family, my children, and in my case especially, my fears. And it’s those fears that have kept me company for so long that He wants from me. My what ifs…my control or illusion thereof. He wants to be in control of my life and that is one of the things God asks us to surrender to Him, our control.

In reality, control truly is an illusion. We have no true control in this life. We may seem to have control over what we eat or where we go or even the things that we say, but the end results are far beyond that illusion of control. No matter what we eat, we cannot control what nutrients our body takes away from the food, no matter where we go, we can not change the destination itself, and no matter what we say, we cannot control the way it will ultimately make another feel.

Do I think we should just give up and do anything and everything? Absolutely not! I whole heartedly believe that we must give our best in everything, but I am learning that to surrender our control to God means to seek His will and way rather than our own. To ask Him what it is that we should be doing, rather than doing what we think is best. To surrender to God means giving up our control in favor of God’s guidance, and honestly, there are times when I don’t want to go where God is guiding me. Again, I come to a place where I need to surrender.

It seems that surrender is around every corner, under every rug and in every nook and cranny in my life. God keeps reminding me, “you need to surrender this to me…”  And I’m trying, I’m learning and growing and changing. Not of my own power, but of the grace that God gives us when we surrender to Him.  I have a long way to go, but with prayer, faith and trust in my Almighty God, I’ll keep running this race, and I will continue to surrender to the One who has changed my life so much.

Being confident of this very thing,

that he which hath begun a good work in you

will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

~ Philippians 1:6