Surrender

My life is not perfect. My walk has not been easy.

I think that often times we walk down that center isle of a Church, seeking redemption and salvation and all the wonderful things Christ offers us, and we think that is the solution to our problems. In my quest for authenticity, allow me to be the bearer of bad news. That is NOT how it works. Accepting Christ is not the solution to all of your problems. You live in a broken world filled with broken people, and all of the salvation in the world cannot take away that singular fact.

But life with Christ is amazing if you can keep your eyes on the right place. (Fun fact: that place is NOT the world around you.)

I mentioned before that I have been a faithful participant of Bible study. Do you know what I thought of those teachers? They were, if not absolutely perfect, so much closer than I would ever be. It didn’t matter how many relatable stories they told me about their own struggle – I promptly forgot those in favor of a picture of perfection that I might strive to be.

The creation of this blog has settled that responsibility firmly on my heart. I don’t want to become the picture of someone’s perfection – I. Am. Not. I am flawed. I sin. I lose my temper. I am, as mentioned before, an obsessive control freak. I have a failed marriage. I have a happy marriage that suffered a lot of failure. I have kids who probably don’t know how to walk with Christ the way they should, because I was too lost in the world to direct them when I had leverage. (Anyone else parenting teens? When did we lose so much influence??) I have mucked up just about everything the Lord has given me. I have used my gifts to further my own selfish agenda. I have ignored my gifts. I have stubbornly refused to surrender. I can keep going if it will help you…

I am a broken, sin-filled mess of a disaster – and yet, He saved me.

The concept of surrender is…a lot. I’m only beginning to wrap my head around it, and if I’m perfectly honest it took more than one emotional breakdown, burn out, desperation, stress, and an immense amount of pressure before I could even begin to consider that surrender MAY be the answer. Friend…it is absolutely the answer.

I have this super cool app on my phone that will let me look up the words in the Bible and see the original word, the original meaning, how many times it appears, etc. Do you know that “surrender” isn’t in there once? Nowhere. But the principle of surrender is everywhere. 

• The prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. (In case I haven’t introduced myself appropriately, I am the prodigal daughter.) 

• Jesus surrendering to God’s will in Mark 14:35-36. 

• Elijah surrenders over and over again. (If you don’t know Elijah’s story, I highly recommend you read it. He is a prophet of God – like, he HEARS God directly – and yet he still struggles with loneliness, fear, doubt…he’s a real person.) 

• Jonah doesn’t want to surrender, and he has good reason! I love Jonah 4:9, when God asks Jonah “do you do well to be angry…”? Ugh, how often does God ask me the same.

Surrender is part of who we are as Christians; it’s basically what we’re signing up for when we walk down that isle – and yet, so many of us struggle with the concept.

As a still-trying-to-recover control freak, let me see if I can put into words what surrender feels like: It’s not my problem, anymore. It’s not my job to change you, I can only control me. I know what has been laid out as expectations for my behavior, I just need to follow. I know the truth, I just need to live by it. I have a big God, who does big things, and has big plans for my life – and I can trust that He will make straight my paths…because that’s what He said He would do. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, full of prayer (and usually blindness these days), and I walk forward…consistently reminding Him that it’s HIS job to make sure I get this right. You know why it’s HIS job? Because I have surrendered.