The Journey of Surrender

Why are there worms in the fridge?

Why is it so hard to surrender?  I think we have each struggled with surrender since birth.  Have you ever met an infant or toddler that didn’t struggle to get away from a diaper change?  I think we are all like that.  We don’t want to deal with our stink.  And we certainly don’t want anyone else dealing with our stink.  The problem is, we don’t just stink, we bear the mark and consequences of sin in our lives.

You name it.  Self absorbance, independence, willfulness, pride, idolatry, greed, envy, power.  It could be any number of root sin issues that creep up on us and unmask our fallenness.  They poke their ugly heads out and we cannot get rid of them.  We want to ignore them, and move forward like nothing is wrong, but we are slowed.  We are distracted.  We cannot continue our journey with these undesirables. We must get rid of them! We want them off, gone, dead.

So we try to deal with them.  We look these evil creatures in the eye and we tell them to “Stop.  Be quiet.  Go away.”  And maybe they do leave us alone for a bit, but only to rear their ugly heads once again, just when we least want them to be revealed.  They will make themselves known and we will hate them.  But these ugly Sins will not leave when we fight them alone.

It takes Jesus to rid us of these evils.  In our surrender to his Lordship, He assumes responsibility for cleaning house.  He wants to get rid of all the ugly sins lurking in the dark recesses of our hearts.  He wants to take them out and slay them once and for all.  But we must surrender.  Jesus won’t purge us of our hauntings without being given full access to every reach of our heart, soul, mind and spirit.  He wants every part of us.  When we surrender, He will take possession of every last corner of us, and heal us, purify us, restore us, remake us, renew us, and give us His life.  He will establish His fruit and goodness in the place of our sin.  He will establish an inner well of righteousness that will not grow dry.  He will make our inner courts like a well-watered garden.  We will be growing, producing fruit, becoming beautiful, pleasing, and all that we were designed to become.

We slow God’s plans when we don’t surrender.  When we cover our ugly places, pretending that the evil is not there, we put up a roadblock to God’s power running through our lives.

God calls for our confession.  He longs for our repentance.  He knows that our true purpose, passion, pleasure and peace will only come from complete surrender to Him and to His Lordship.

He wants us to be free.  He opens the door and invites us in.  He is ready to do business.  He will take care of the stink and the sin.  He will not shame, only heal.  He will not mock, only love.  He will give us His eyes to see ourselves as His Beloved.  He will recreate us in His beauty and will make us vessels, not of darkness, but of light.

Why do we hold on to our sins like they are treasures?  Why do we hide them as if He could not see?  Why do we think that we can be fruitful when we are cultivating bitter soil and harboring enemies that are hell-bent on destroying us and our witness?

So just do it.  Get out the white flag.  Lay still.  Let Him do His work.  Let Him get rid of the ugly, evil, hidden sin.  Let Him slay the obvious, proud sin too.  Let Him have His way.  Let Him occupy all of you with His Spirit so that all of your inner being will be made new.

Surrender is an act of the will.  Jesus will not come with force.  He will not do this dirty work without our cooperation.  It is His desire that we humbly invite Him into our mess, trusting Him to kill the Sin in us, and to grow in us His goodness.

Do we want to be made new?  Do we believe that the Life He has to offer is truly life, and that the life we have been living is only a mere shadow of the abundance that He will offer when we surrender all?

I can’t wait to see what God will do when we fully surrender our lives to His loving hands.  He has called us to great purposes and is anxiously awaiting our full obedience.  Let’s not keep the King waiting!

“Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.”  –Oswald Chamber

For more from Oswald Chambers, see http://utmost.org/oswald-chambers-bio/