Surrender to Him. Simply put, it is the secret to life. But how do we do it? With every breath we take, God is imploring us, petitioning us, begging us to let go of our death grip on all the things in our lives that keep us from Him and instead, sit quietly, lay our prayers in His hands, and wait. When we are close to His side, we can easily do that. Other times, when we’ve gotten swept up by the craziness of life, it’s not so easy, but He’s still there, with His arms outstretched, waiting.
Your children
You are in the midst of an impossible situation with a child. You don’t know what to do to help him. Through exhaustion and desperation, you fall to your knees and finally let go and hand it over to God. You experience what happens when you only offer prayer, not advice, commands, or demands. God begins to move in your child’s life, perhaps because there is now freedom where before there were chains. Your faith in Him has set great things into motion. That’s surrender.
Your family relationships
Because we are pleasers, we are willing to do anything and everything to fix our family.When tempers flare and we realize that sometimes family members just don’t want our help, we finally, through frustration, stop trying to change them. Our attention and focus can then go back to pleasing God, not our family. Tension releases. Godly examples are set. Positive steps are made. Eyes are opened. Relationships are calmed. That’s surrender.
Your job.
Perhaps your job is overwhelming you or perhaps it’s unsatisfying and has been for years. Maybe it’s even kind of a toxic environment. It could be that you struggle because you want to be more present for your family. Then, because you’re so unhappy, you lose that job. You’re devastated because it’s gone. Then,because it no longer has anything to give you, you turn away from that job and finally turn back to God. You begin to see your true potential and your true purpose in life. What you once saw as loss, you begin to see as a tremendous gift. In essence you begin to see that He took you away from that which kept you from Him. You start to feel revitalization in your life and a new purposeful energy. You move forward. That’s surrender.
Your money.
Money has taken hold of your life. Maybe you depend on it way too much and struggle to let go of it. Maybe you have none. Either way, the thought of tithing is nagging at you uncontrollably. You throw your hands up and say, “Okay fine, God, prove to me that you’re in control!” And He does…every time! You see very tangible signs that for the first time in a long time, you are in direct communication with Him. You are fully asking Him to guide you financially and then without hesitation you find yourself asking Him to guide you in every other aspect of life. That’s surrender.
Your self esteem.
You try so hard to do everything right. It’s not working. You feel like a failure. You hurt. You lay in bed and say, “I give up.” You finally let go. You allow yourself to not have to…
“be beautiful”,
“be smart”,
“be influential”,
but rather just “be” for a while.
You get still enough to finally feel God’s gentle hand turning you down a different path, your own path. For the first time in a long time, you hear His voice. And it tells you that you are beautifully wonderful in His eyes. You melt into His arms. That’s surrender.
Sometimes surrender happens voluntarily, but most of the time it happens out of desperation for change. He is in it all and it is all part of His perfect plan to simply bring you back home.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.