A Posture of Surrender

 

Worshiping and praying on the roof for our
next month in Bolivia, I prayed for surrender. That my team, my squad, and
myself would continue to lay everything down and surrender to the will of God.
That we would lay our expectations, our agendas, our hopes, and all those
things we feel entitled to down at the foot of the cross. As I prayed that God
would move and that His glory would be made known, I felt the need to raise my
hands, a symbol of surrender. In that moment of silence, the wind blew and God
reminded me of Moses in the battle against the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16).

Moses raised his hands to the heavens and
“as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever
he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning” (Exodus 17:11). I’m sure
many people have gained this perspective before, and someone has probably even
put it in a book or something, but for me I had a new understanding of the
lesson of this scripture. It wasn’t, as it rarely is, about Moses’ physical
hands being in the air; it was about the posture of the hearts of God’s people.
As long as they were surrendered and completely reliant on God for victory,
victory they had. But, as soon as they took control back into their own hands,
leaving that surrendered posture, the battle went down hill. Similarly, when we
move from a surrendered life to busy hands, untrusting of God and His promises,
we loose.

A few minutes after I told this to my team,
as we were worshiping again, I looked up and saw one of my teammates with her
hands lifted in the air. My next thought was, ‘she is going to drop her hands.
She can’t hold them up for long.’ That is when the Spirit reminded me of
another part of the story. Moses did not do it alone; his friends were there
for him. “When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him
and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up -one on one side, one on the
other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset” (Exodus 17:12). God
doesn’t expect us to do it on our own; His desire is for us to live in a
community that will hold up our hands when we are too weak. We will all drop
our hands at some point, but we are not alone. And not only that, we have the
honor of being there to hold up the hands of others.

Maintaining a posture of surrender is the
only way to win the battle, as soon as we try to take control, we lose.