“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 blessed Savior, I surrender all.”
I’ve known this song for as long as I’ve been alive, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really considered the extent of what it means before the last couple of months.
The last two months or so of being on the field with my last squad, the Lord began asking me to surrender more. And when I say, “more”, I really mean everything. Specifically regarding the people I had grown close to over the course of that race, He was asking if He were to take them away, would I be ok with that?
If He were to take away the things and the people I cared about and it was just the Lord and I left, would He be enough?!
Holy smokes, that’s not an easy thing to answer!
Of course, I knew the answer was yes, but that didn’t mean I believed it and was ok with it.
After wrestling with it and finally genuinely telling Him, “Yes. If you are all I have, I will be content.”, He gave me a vision. I was standing in the throne room with all of my people and he asked me to step forward – without them.
Step forward. Alone.
Once I did, He began to show me all the things He had for me. It was so much!! All the things I’d dreamed of and more, but it wasn’t until I was willing to fully surrender that He was ready to give them to me.
Last night we were worshiping corporately for the last time before leaving the country. I was sitting out in the hallway talking and crying (even though I’m on board with it, it’s still a pretty painful process) to the Lord about the surrender situation…again… when this girl walking up to me.
Her name was Sydney. I’d met her once very briefly. She was a guest at the hotel that just happened to join us for worship. She knew nothing about me, but she asked to pray for me.
She prayed things over me that the Lord has been speaking to me for weeks. There’s no way she could’ve known it would mean anything to me. I knew it was the Lord speaking through her. It’s like He was telling me that it’s ok to surrender everything, everyone, because it’s not them I crave. It’s Him. His comfort. His love. His companionship. And I don’t need a certain group of people around me to experience that. He can even use a complete stranger.
With my whole heart, I believe that I am stepping into a season where the Lord is going to take me to new depths with Him. He’s going to show me things and let me experience Him and His Spirit in ways that are beyond my comprehension.
I really don’t think I’ve ever, in my life, been as expectant for things to happen as I am right now. As much as I expect good things to happen, I also expect it to be challenging. I expect to be more uncomfortable than ever before but because of my willingness to embrace that, He’s going to invite me into amazing things.
