Hi everyone! I wanted to share what the Lord has been teaching me about surrender & how He led me to get baptized a few weeks ago!
Since being on the race, I’ve learned so much about surrender, and what it practically looks like to surrender things in my life. Within the first couple of weeks of living in GA, I easily became overwhelmed by the amount of new things I was trying to adjust to all at once. To combat feeling overwhelmed by alllll the things, I began to learn how to surrender them to the Lord. Each morning I would make a list in my journal of things I needed to surrender. Sometimes it looked like surrendering my frustrations of living out of a backpack in my tent, surrendering what my idea of “home” looks like when constantly moving all my belongings, or surrendering my family & friends back home, as I can’t physically walk through this season of life with them.
One morning in September, I was feeling frustrated that everyday I had to make a (sometimes long) list of things to surrender. It felt tiring to do it everyday, sometimes even more than once a day. More than that, I was often surrendering the same things day after day. I began to feel the weight of surrendering, wondering how long I would have to do this. I continued to hold onto that frustration until the Lord gave me a new perspective in the porta potty. Yeah, the porta potty. The Lord really does speak anytime & anywhere! And when living in community, there are almost always voices. Sometimes the porta potty is one of the only “quiet” spots.
Anyways, I felt the Lord say there would never be a time I wouldn’t need to surrender. And as much as that could have added more weight and frustration, knowing the process of surrendering would never be done, it actually lifted the weight off. I began to see this as a worthy part of my daily routine with the Lord, a way to start my day off on the right foot. It’s become beautifully refreshing to start my day with surrender, in order to walk freely through the day without being inhibited by the things I’m holding onto.
For the past 2 months I’ve put a physical action to surrendering. I made a daily priority of surrendering everything, from family & friends, to every situation far beyond my control. Then on November 5th, I felt the call to a deeper physical representation of surrender.
That Thursday morning, our squad mentor, Madie, led a devotion on baptism. She also told us we would have the opportunity to get baptized that afternoon. What we talked about that morning wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary, or something I hadn’t heard before. If you’re not familiar with baptism, it’s basically an outward declaration of an inward transformation. A physical symbol of dedicating my life the Lord. Like a wedding ring symbolizing marriage.
So I knew all about baptism, and growing up I sat through many teachings about it, but never felt a tug in my heart to get baptized. But during the devo, something deep in me knew today was the day. Still, I was skeptical. I spent the morning wrestling with myself, basically trying to find a reason not to press into further surrender. I was bogged down by the thought that I just somehow didn’t know enough. Enough about the Bible, the Lord, His character, or even baptism itself. Because as much as I know, there’s always so much more to learn & understand. I also didn’t want my decision to be out of emotion or strong feelings in the moment. I knew this decision carried weight. It’s an act of surrendering my life, and that’s not something to take lightly.
Then, later that morning, we had a teaching by Gabe, an incredible man who works with the AIM base in Guatemala. Throughout his time speaking with us, he repeatedly asked “will you just die already?”. He explained that the Lord is looking for lives laid down, fully surrendered. Lives that die to their flesh daily. Lives that never leave the altar. In other words, He’s coming for a bride, not a one night stand. I’ve heard statements like that for years, but never really understood them in my heart. But that morning things just clicked.
In the days leading up to that Thursday morning, the Lord has been speaking the word daughter over me. I was reminded of myself when I was little. My parents would introduce me and say “this is my daughter, Jen”. I would often respond with “I am not your daughter!” simply because I didn’t understand what the word meant. In my mind, daughter was a long, big word – I was just Jen. More recently, I’ve still found myself saying “I’m not your daughter”, but this time in relation to my Heavenly Father. I often strive so hard to build up my own identity, but so easily forget about the identity I’ve already been given. There’s nothing I can do to earn that identity as His daughter It doesn’t matter how much I know or understand, my identity as His daughter is unchanging.
So, as we ended our teaching with Gabe, we had a time of worship. Somewhere in the middle, on my knees, I heard the Lord say “daughter, I want your heart. Don’t second guess”. Wow say less God. The doubts and excuses I had made that morning became miniscule after hearing the Lord speak that over me. I was reminded I don’t have to know everything before I surrender my life, that’s not the point of surrendering. Being His daughter isn’t conditional or based on how much I know or even how well I perform. In fact if I had to know everything before I came to the Lord, I would never come and surrender, because as hard as I try, I’ll never know or understand it all.
So that Thursday afternoon, my squad and I drove to a state park where over 20 of my squadmates & I got baptized in the freezing, murky water! We spent that afternoon laying it all down in the water & coming up walking in new life. Declaring freedom & that there’s no turning back!
Updates!
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Fundraising: I’m 80% funded, which means I only need to raise $3,145 to be fully funded! I have been blown away with the support I have received, thank you all so, so much!
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My next blog will be about our time in Louisiana serving with Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief. Be on the lookout for that soon 🙂
Ways that you can continue to be a part of my journey:
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PRAY: By far the most important! For continued intimacy with the Lord & each other. Safe travels & good health as our squad goes our separate ways for Thanksgiving this Saturday.
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SHARE: Share my blog with others! Invite them to become a part of my journey & what the Lord is doing here in Georgia & soon overseas.
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DONATE: you can donate by 1) clicking the orange “Donate!” bar on the right hand side of my blog 2) through venmo @jennopdahl 3) by check, payable to Adventures in Missions
All the love,
Jen
