Dan Baumann of YWAM shared his story with us this Sunday. He shared this statement, which he had heard from someone at some point in his youth, which I think captures (practically) perfectly what I’m truly striving for, or at least, want to strive for:
Everything you want to do for God should be the overflow of your intimacy with God.
And then there’s the hymn “I Surrender All.” I’ve sang this hymn plenty of times, but I don’t think I grasped the intensity of the lyrics until I sang it at Urbana 06. And tonight, during this last week at my current job, just as I was about to go to bed, the 1st verse of this hymn came to mind. I couldn’t remember it exactly, so I got up to google it and found that the 3rd verse also rings very true in my heart.
All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessèd Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.
I’m realizing that I can’t hype myself up to surrender to this degree, namely, to give up everything. I increasingly recognize that this total surrender is made possible to the extent of my closeness, kinship, and, quite simply, friendship with God. And I don’t know if I can say I’m that intimate with God, but I want to be.
‘Cause even when we were still separated by our sin from Him, He drew near to us; He died to close the gap between us.
Lord, I’m insecure of where our friendship stands sometimes; help me to trust that You like me as I am. Most of the time I have a hard time believing that I don’t have to impress You. It’s so easy for me to forget that I don’t have to do anything to deserve Your care.
Let me simply be near You.
Rescue me from hanging on this line
I won’t give up on giving You a chance to blow my mind
Let the eleventh hour quickly pass me by
I’ll find You when I think I’m out of time
