I think sometimes in our own ‘humanness’ we complicate surrender, or at the very least, hinder its fullness in our lives.
Sometimes it’s painful to surrender something. Sometimes it’s easier to stay in a bubble of comfort than it is to embrace the process, embrace the unknown, to embrace change. & when we don’t surrender whatever it is Holy Spirit is asking us to surrender, we hinder ourselves in our faith journey & harden our hearts to the Father, whether we know it or not.
In Ephesians Paul writes that ‘even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny & the good works we would do to fulfill it’ (Eph 2v10, TPT). As followers & friends of Jesus, & even before we knew him, we are & have always been called. But, with our calling/s, surrender comes 100% of the time. I mean, it’s a practical thing that exhibits itself in our daily lives. ‘Surrendering’ applies with a job you’re called into. It’s the same for a relationship you’re in & committed to. & it’s the same with our Kingdom calling/s. Even Jesus’ calling required total 100% surrender, quite literally surrendering his own life.
We will always have to surrender something because God will always call us to something that is out of our realm of providing. This may seem scary at first, but if you view the process as an adventurous journey, allowing yourself to delve evermore deeply into the Father’s arms & heart, embracing the rawness of true intimacy & trust, your faith will grow immeasurably along the way. Super cool, yeah? So how many of us actually do this on a regular basis? Or are we letting fear of ‘letting go’ rob us of the joy we will experience of following what we’re actually called to step into?
A practical example of guys who continually surrendered their self-sufficiency were the disciples – Jesus’ boys. When Jesus called out to them & said ‘come & follow me, & I will transform you…’, every time, each one of them ‘immediately’, or as the NLT puts it, ‘at once’, dropped what they were doing & left everything behind to follow Jesus (Matt 4v19-20, TPT). Even if the disciples assumed they would return back to their fishing boats, they became so captivated by knowing & following Jesus that they surrendered their lives to him. They surrendered their physical realm of providing for themselves, through leaving their jobs. They left their families. They surrendered what was comfortable & known, to follow a rabbi who taught in a way that fundamentally shifted mindsets to Kingdom perspectives.
The disciples still faced fear – think about Peter walking on water (Matt 14v22-33) or when they fed the five thousand (Matt 14v13-21). But like us, the disciples still had to learn how to posture their hearts to surrender daily, choosing to depend & trust in Jesus.
We have a choice. We can be fearful or we can be courage-filled. You may be faced with fear, but you can choose whether or not you want to engage with courage, engage with Love, even when you cannot see where the path leads. BUT it’s through engaging with courage & Love, surrendering our self-sufficiency, & positioning ourselves to be fully embraced & dependant on Yahweh that faith & hope prevail in our lives, & character is built.
This is one of my current wrestles: surrendering self-sufficiency & intentionally positioning myself as a daughter of Abba who lives fully dependant on Him, daily. It’s probably a good thing I have deeply wrestled with this because MAN I know that I’m going to have to keep continuously positioning my heart to surrender self-sufficiency this year, & every day next year…& continuously for the rest of my life haha.
The way I like to see it is we need to take off our shoes in surrender & step onto Jesus’ feet. It’s simple. A simple surrender. Just like the way children step onto their dad’s feet while their dad walks in tangent with them, leading the way. It’s the same way with us & Jesus. We need to surrender control, depend on him fully, & trust in his guidance, knowing with deep conviction in our hearts that He is journeying with us to see His divine purposes for our lives come to fruition.
The promise is & will always be in the process. In the process of pursuing Him. In the process of positioning our hearts in surrender. The promise always lies in the process, not at the end goal, because as it says in James (1v3, NLT), when our ‘faith is tested, our endurance has a chance to grow.’ Every time the disciples had their faith tested, their level of faith deepened & grew. It was character building; their chance to learn how to fly in the Kingdom. It’s in the process of surrender, of having our faith tested in obedience, that our character is inwardly transformed, allowing our faith to sprout evermore within our souls.
Would you be willing to embrace the process of simply surrendering? To trust Him to fully depend & embrace His love & heart for your life, so your faith can sprout evermore within your soul?
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UPDATE!!
I am 25% funded for next year! Woooo!! S/o to God for His rad provision. ThankYOUUU to everyone who has prayed, supported, encouraged, walked alongside me through the current journey – means a whole lot, & am blessed by each of you. For those who don’t know I’ve also started an adopt-a-box! If you want to check it out, here’s a link to it: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByCiQR7lVi6/
For those keen to journey with me through prayer, here are a few prayer points: God’s continued provision in finances, specifically in fundraising for next year, & in general with all the gear, etc that I need to buy before mid-Oct. Prayer for physical health & spiritual growth, & prayer for my team mates with their preparation seasons for next year too, would be swell (:
– em
