The Journey to Surrender

Since my last therapy session I’ve wrestled with the thought of complete and total surrender. I’ve tried to imagine what my life would be like on the other side of it, but I was merely left with fearful “What if …” scenarios. I decided to take a walk and pour my heart out to the Lord about it. I shared my fears with Him: fear of a loss of control, fear of my surrender becoming transactional, fear that everything I held dear would be loosened from my grip. Everything that I prayed for, even the things I didn’t pray for, would vanish.

What made me even more fearful was the amount of discipline, delight, and effort that it would take for me to maintain the upkeep of my surrender. Perfectionism entered the chat – I thought, “What if I can’t keep up with the surrender?”, “What if I grow weary in my surrender?”, “What if I look back and see how much easier it was to be one in and one foot out of surrender?” So many thoughts raced through my mind, yet I gave them all to the Lord. Then the Holy Spirit brought to my mind Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT), 

“Then Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

Surrender isn’t easy, but it’s easier than the fight it takes to not surrender. Jesus is the ultimate teacher, which means that He can teach me how to rest. He can teach me how to take upon his yoke. So what am I so afraid of? I know the cost of following Jesus, He talks about it in Luke 9:23-25 (NLT), 

“Then he said to the crowd, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but you are yourself lost or destroyed?” 

In order to follow Jesus wholeheartedly there has to be a divine exchange, there has to be death. We have to exchange control for surrender. We have to exchange our preferences for Jesus’ preferences. Not our will but the Lord’s will be done. And once we exchange it, we have to leave it at Jesus' feet. We have to leave it at the altar and allow the Lord’s consuming fire to burn it up. 

Guys this thing terrifies me because I like the details, I like to be in the know – but when you are following Jesus and allowing God to reign and rule in your life, you don’t get to be in the know of every single thing. Because if we knew all the details, if we knew what would happen at every single twist and turn … we wouldn’t need Jesus .. and I want to need Him! I am desperate to NEED Him!

I have been trying my absolute hardest to be more honest and vulnerable with the Father about these very fears I have. I want Him to know my deepest thoughts … even though He already knows, He’s just waiting on me to actually share them with them. He’s waiting on me to open up my mouth and not be bound in my mind by them. So, that’s what I’ve been doing and what I am doing by writing this post. I know that the Father speaks to me when I write and He’s even been getting at me while I’m writing.

I don’t know what’s on the other side of my complete and total surrender to the Father, but I am sure going to do my best DAILY at surrendering everything to Him. Not because I’m looking for something tangible that He can give me, but I’m after the intangibles. The things that will stick with me long after this world passes away. So I’m going to keep talking with the Father, I’m going to keep calling on Jesus to help me, and for the Holy Spirit to guide me on this journey to FULL SURRENDER – because that’s exactly what this season is.