I Give Up

Surrender sounds like a passive word. Seems like it's another way of saying, "do nothing." In this adventure of trying to be a fully committed follower of Christ, to be His, there's a lot of surrendering goin' on. I must surrender my will, my self, my picture of how things should turn out, my grudges--lay it all down and trust Him to take care of it. Surrendering is something I've thought about and written about, and been working to do for quite a while. And that's the way it's supposed to be, Jesus said we'll need to do it daily. Surrendering isn't a check on the to-do list, it's a way of living.

The new ah-hah moment for me this past weekend is this: surrendering is NOT passive. It isn't doing nothing at all. Waving the white flag isn't doing nothing, walking across the lines and holding up your hands, that isn't nothing. That's taking steps in a new, different direction. And it's scary. Maybe a little lonely. And there's some loss involved, so it's sad, there may be some grieving.

Sometimes surrendering is a relief. There's all this stuff, this burden I've been carrying around, and thank You, Jesus, I can lay it all down before You. There's a freeing lightening of the big, heavy load. But this weekend, I've felt this fear, loneliness, and sadness. It's been troubling, and I've been asking God what's the deal? Where's the joy? I'm trying so hard to surrender, where's the pay-off?

But I'm thinking this morning, that maybe this is what surrender feels like, too. Really giving something up means a real death of sorts. And really trusting, really having faith, is believing God has something so much better for me than my dreams when I kind of liked them, and miss them for a while.