God just isn’t enough; He won’t satisfy when you completely surrender to Him.
If you were to tell me that a week ago I would probably shut you out and think you were crazy. Of course God was enough for me. He’s God, the creator of the universe. The god who, every Sunday, people sing praise to. I mean, how many songs do we sing that describe the way He provides and satisfies those who believe in Him?
However, this past week at training camp I realized that this sentence that I stated at the beginning is what I fell into believing. Though I would have never just openly admitted that I thought God wasn’t enough for me, my actions were proving it. I knew that there were things that I was holding onto that God was calling me to give up—to completely surrender to Him. I think that there were times in the past that I had completely given it all to Him but as time went on, I’d fall back into the habit of holding on. I was holding on to things that weren’t mine. They were God’s blessings and I had a death grip on them because I somehow felt that God would just take them away; wipe them clean out of my life. I fell into focusing on the blessing, not the one who gave the blessing.
During one of the night worship sessions, I was struggling. I was seriously wrestling with the fact that God was calling me to give back to Him something that I had become focused on but I didn’t want to let go. I kept trying to negotiate with God—like seriously, what in the world was I thinking?
I went on trying to tell God that this is just something that I needed, I prayed that if God really wanted me to give it up that someone would place their hand on me. You know, just put their hand on my shoulder…They wouldn’t even have to say anything, just that simple act would tell me that God really wanted me to give up this thing I was holding onto.
Well, He heard me.
Not too long after I utter my pathetic plea of negotiation to God, someone came by during one of the worship songs and put her hand on my shoulder. She didn’t even say anything, she didn’t need to, but my heart sank.
I asked and God responded.
This was the start of a struggle that lasted the next couple of days. I wanted to give it all to Him, I really did. But I just kept feeling that if I truly surrendered, I wouldn’t be satisfied.
Fast forward to the one of the last nights of worship.
I was there, still struggling with the fact that God was really calling me to give up the very thing that I thought, and that people told me, He had blessed me with.
Then it happened.
I was called out. The guy leading worship (I really wish I could remember his name) said that there were some there that were wrestling with God. He told us that we should completely give it to God and let go.
That broke me. I was in tears; I knew that I couldn’t hold onto it any longer. From the beginning I knew it wasn’t mine but was too stubborn to let God have it.
The moment I let go, I felt this overwhelming sense of joy and peace. I then felt like God was telling me that He wasn’t going to take this thing out of my life but that He needed me to realize that this was His blessing and to not hold the blessing higher than Him. He didn’t need this specific thing, but He wanted me to see that He was the one where true joy, peace, and security came from.
That night the story of Abraham and Isaac came to mind. God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, even though God had previously told Abraham that he would make a nation of him through Isaac.
That was the moment when God tested Abraham’s trust. Abraham could’ve held the blessing God had given to him or he could give it back to the one who created the blessing. Abraham ended up doing the latter, but God sent an Angel before Isaac was sacrificed. [You can read about it in Genesis 22].
I know my experience is nowhere near as dramatic as Abraham’s but I still think God was testing my trust in Him. Not for Him to see where I stood, but so I would see where my heart was really at.
Surrendering to Christ, at least for me, is a process that I will probably have to continue to go through for many years. It’s not just something that I can say once and think that I’ll never have to do it again. Life presents different things during different times.
However, what God has been teaching me, and what my time at training camp showed me, is that complete surrender will always leave me satisfied.
This is not just true for me. It’s true for anyone who completely surrenders to Him.
I challenge you to look at your own life; are there things you’ve got a death grip on? Don’t let it take many nights and “negotiating” to finally let go. He’s waiting for those who want to be completely filled with Him. He won’t leave you empty—He will completely satisfy.
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