Journey of Surrender . . . #1



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Long ago, when I gave my heart to Christ, I jumped into the driver’s seat, thanked God for the car, asked Him for the keys and expected that He would ride shotgun.



I gratefully invited Him to sit beside me to be my copilot on my journey.  I wanted God in my life to help me do what I could not do on my own.  I expected that He would navigate around the difficulties and smooth out the road. 


Isn’t that what a copilot's supposed to do?

 

For much of my life, I have had this propensity to want to be in control.  It’s easier this way . . . at least that’s what I like to tell myself.   It’s just plain scary letting someone else drive my car . . . even if it is the God of the Universe, who knows me better than I know myself and loves me anyway.  

 

For a long time, fear kept me from turning over the keys to my Savior.  Fear of what He might do . . . Fear of where He might take me . . . Fear of what He might ask me to achieve.  I was so focused on ME that I couldn’t embrace HIM. 

 

Mathew 16.24-26 (MSG) says this,  . . . “Anyone who intends to come with me has to LET ME LEAD.  YOU’RE NOT IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT; I AM. . .   Don’t run from suffering; embrace it.  Follow me and I’ll show you how.  Self-help is no help at all.  Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.  What kind of deal is it to get everything but lose yourself?  What could you ever trade your soul for?”

 
 

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Surrender is never easy.  Fear can be over powering and the way of suffering difficult. But God calls each one of us to pry our hands from the wheel, hand over the keys and leave the driving to Him. 

 

 

When I finally relinquished control I was amazed at what I discovered!    There is Freedom in Following, Joy in Trusting, and Peace in Surrender.

 

 

 

 

 

Surrender. Embrace. Trust. Follow.

 

 

 

This is the WAY, His WAY . . .

 

Lord, teach me to TRUST You, to EMBRACE all that you have for me, SURRENDER to Your perfect Way and FOLLOW where you lead.  Amen.

 

 

The Problem with Expectations

When my husband and I got married I had HUGE expectations about how he would express his love for me. 


I stepped into marriage expecting that he would make the bed every day, bring me a perfectly made cup of tea each morning, and vacuum the floor all the while  encouraging me to put my feet up and rest.  That's how I thought my husband would show his love for me.


To be completely truthful, I think I expected him to know my needs before I even knew them.  I wouldn’t have admitted that but I had HIGH expectations of married life based on my own fantasies and the fairytales I had read.

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I’m sure you can see where this is going.  It made for the perfect storm . . .  because of course, that wasn’t my reality.  When my husband didn’t come through the way I thought he should than I became disillusioned, disappointed and questioned if he really loved me at all. 

My expectations kept me from seeing how my husband really was loving me. 


I didn’t see that when he filled up my car with gas in the frigid cold, he was showing me love.  He knew this California girl would have a hard time standing out there.  I just assumed my car never ran out of gas.  
 

I didn’t see that the sacrifice he made by going to a job he hated day in and day out was his way of saying, “I love you.”

I was so focused on the ways he “wasn’t loving” me that I couldn’t see the ways in which he was.

I admit, I have done the same thing with God. 

I have expectations of God.  I pray and expect him to answer in the way I think it should be answered and then am so focused on how he ISN’T ANSWERING my prayer that I miss the way in which He is. 

It's gone something like this . . . "God I've been praying that you would make yourself known to me, that I would see You.  I need to know that You are real and working in my life.  I feel so distant from You and even further away since I prayed this prayer.   I had a friend call me, out of the blue to see how I was doing and to pray over me but where were You? Why aren't You answering me?"   


Never realizing that it was God who moved in my friend's heart to call me and to pray over me, I missed the way God was loving me and answering my prayer.

 

Ephesians 5.1-2 says, Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 

As Your child, I accept Your love for me, in the way You CHOOSE to show it and to LET GO of the expectations that hinder me from seeing Your amazing work in my life.

 

Hiding!

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When my boys were young we played a game that they affectionately called “hiding”, at the end of bath time. They would climb out of the tub and I would throw a towel over them as they lay on the floor tucked in and head down.

The fun would begin when, I would start by saying, “Where’s Logan? Where did he go? Is he in the bathtub? No, he’s not there! I wonder where he could be?” I would put my hands on his back as I leaned into the bathtub to see if he was there. And inevitably there would be a giggle from under the towel. I would go on to look under the sink, behind the toilet, in back of the shower curtain, all the while my precious little one would lay on the rug “hiding”. Finally, he would get tired and say, “Mommy, I’m right here!” And he’d jump up from under the towel. They all loved that game and we played it endlessly.

It always amazed me why they enjoyed that game so much. It was so simple and in my adult eyes completely ridiculous. I often wondered how they could believe that they were really hiding from me.

As I was reminiscing recently about this game I played with my kids so long ago, I felt God’s whisper, “Hmmm, don’t you play this game with me?” Ouch.

“Yes, Lord I do.”

Why do I think I can hide? I KNOW that He is the God of the Universe, that He sees me and knows me intimately and most of the time that brings me great joy. Until . . . I don’t want Him to know what I’ve done, what thoughts I’ve had, what words I’ve spoken.

And then I play the hiding game! I curl up in the fetal position with my shame and embarrassment over my head and just like my children, pretend He doesn’t see me, He doesn’t know what I’ve done or what I’ve thought.

I’m not the only one who has tried to hide - Adam and Eve hid after they disobeyed God in the Garden, David when he tried to cover up what he did with Bathsheba and Jonah who jumped on a ship and went in completely the opposite direction. (At least I’m in good company!) The Bible is filled with men and women who tried to hide from God, to cover up what they had done, to run from what He was calling them to do.

But look at what it says in 1 Chronicles 28:9 “. . . For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought.” Proverbs 24:12 “ . . . For God understands all hearts, and he sees you.”

It’s silly to think that we can hide from God. But what I find amazing is that even when I’m running from God He is THERE! And He loves me with an Everlasting Love. His great desire is to bring me back into fellowship with Him. He stands with arms wide open ready for me to step back into His embrace!

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” Jeremiah 31:3

So let go of the shame and embarrassment or that one thing that is holding you back from His embrace and RUN, RUN, RUN into His arms, He’s patiently waiting.

O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORD.
You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!        Psalm 139:1-6

That Scary Word Called . . .

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Have you ever been brave enough to pray for patience? 

 

 

 Maybe you've  been warned ahead of time . . .

 

 

Isn’t patience at its very essence indicative of hardship?  Why would you need  patience unless it was something difficult you had to endure?

 

So I wonder . . . when we pray for patience are we really asking God to make our lives easy so that we won’t need it?



Are we secretly hoping that we won’t have to wait in traffic, endure obnoxious children, wait for test results, and put up with a grouchy mother-in-law?  Is our heart’s desire more about our comfort than God doing anything radical in our life?

 

Let me reiterate . . . in order to be patient, we must have a difficulty to endure otherwise no patience is needed. 

 

Psalm 27 is David’s heart cry to his Heavenly Father.  In verse fourteen he says this, Wait patiently for the LORD.  Be brave and courageous.  Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.(Notice the repetition)

 

 

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Whether we like it or not we all need patience to endure the difficult places in life.  Trouble is no discerner of people – it comes to all of us.  And the question is how will we handle it?  Will we rage at God for allowing it, bury our head in the sand,  curl up in ourselves or will we embrace it, see God’s grace in it and let Him work His patience in us?

 

 As David prayed, let us pray . . .  “Teach us how to live.”  (Psalm 27.11) 

 

What's On Your List?

I dug out an old post from the archives for this week.  I hope that it challenges you as it did me.  I don't think I can ever be reminded of this enough.

 

If you knew that your house was going to burn down and you could grab just a few things, what would be on your list?   Family pictures?  The car parked in the garage?  A brand new couch you’d finally found after looking for 3 years?  Your Bible?   Your dog?

My husband’s brother and his wife had their house burn a few years ago.   It was early morning, everyone was sleeping.  Praise God everyone woke up and was able to get out of the house.  When the volunteer fire department got there they asked them, “What do you want us to save?”  They wanted their family photo albums, something they knew they couldn’t replace.

After losing pretty much everything they owned they realized that what they had on this earth wasn’t nearly as important as what they were laying up in heaven.  And they left a well paying job, family members and a church family to serve God in Wyoming.

 

Matthew 6:19-21 says, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.  Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.  Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”

In the movie, Schindler’s List, Oskar Schindler, a wealthy German businessman "employs" Jewish people to work in his factories during the Holocaust.  At first he is only concerned about making money and being successful but as time goes on he begins to realize that when he requests someone to work for him he is literally saving their life.  By the end of the movie his whole focus has turned from being successful to saving as many Jews as possible by putting them on the "list" (of workers).

The Original List

There is a gripping scene in the movie where Schindler gathers all of his Jewish employees together at the end of the war.  The Jews he saved give him a gift - a gold ring with a Hebrew inscription, "He who saves one man, saves the whole world."   Overcome with guilt at the way he wasted so much money and could have saved so many more, he looks down at a pin on his jacket and yanks it off.  There is a desperate misery in his eyes as he says, “This would have bought one more person, I could have saved one more person?” and he falls to the ground racked with bitter agony because he chose his pin over saving another human being.

As I watched this scene with tears running down my own face, I couldn’t help but wonder if when I get to heaven I won’t feel the same way.  The money I spent on a sweater I just had to have or the time I felt prompted by God to speak to a friend about Jesus and didn’t, that I will be standing in heaven, racked with my own agony and guilt over the fact that I could have helped bring more people into the Kingdom of Heaven and chose a sweater or my own comfort over them!

 “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also.”

 

What's on your list?   What do you treasure?  Where do you spend your time, your thoughts, your energy – is it on yourself, the things you own, your own comfort?

There’s only one thing we can take with us to heaven – other people.  

Lord, teach us to set our affection on things above and not on things of this earth.  Show us how to treasure what You treasure.  May we never lose sight of what is truly important – loving You first and then loving other people.