Surrender

 

Surrender, it's such a daily thing; how I wish that it wasn't.  How I wish that I woke up every morning in perfect harmony with the will of the One whose way is perfect and that I stayed that way all day long.  But at least for me, that's not how it is; it takes the Spirit's prompting to bring my ever wandering heart back to His.  It's not so hard to surrender to God's sovereignty and purpose when His will happens to match up with mine, when my dreams are coming true, when I and the people I love are healthy, when my future looks bright.  But when my dreams aren't coming true, when I or the people I love are called to suffer, and when Heaven looks bright but everything between here and there look dismal, then it's harder to surrender.  I want to be God's faithful servant, it's just that I'd rather be Joseph when His brothers bowed down to Him than Joseph spending time in jail.  But being part of God's family means sticking together through the thick and the thin, it means trusting my Heavenly Father, for better things to come and for grace to endure in the meantime.  

 

Jesus said, "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."  Matthew 13:50 (ESV)

 

He didn't say...whoever does my Father's will when it's convenient, or comfortable, or just what you'd hoped it would be.....He said "whoever does the will of my Father".

 

Surrender is hard because my flesh wants my will.  But you can't have it both ways.

 

"Unless Jesus is Lord of all, He is not Lord at all."

(Dr. S. M. Zwemer, The Solitary Throne (London: Pickering and Inglis, c.1937)

 

So I pray as my mentor taught me "Lord, make me willing to be willing to be willing..."

Surrender is a daily thing, but so is grace.  Grace doesn't mean it will be easy, it just means it is possible.  Grace means we can surrender, that throughout life in the little and the big deaths we are called to we can chose what our hearts have already chosen at the cross of Calvary.  Grace means that my wandering heart will find it's way home, and knowing that I can go to bed and wake up each morning in harmony.