Surrendering Freedom
Do you like giving up? How do you feel when your best isn’t good enough and you need to quit? I’m not sure anyone likes that feeling. Our culture may compound the shame, though. We’re drowning in messages that tell us — “never give up!” “Follow your dreams!” “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good enough!” “You gotta fight — for your right — to paaaaaaaaarty!” Wait. That’s for a different blog.
So when I thought God was telling me that He would teach me to surrender — to Him — I was scared. I resisted the thought. In my way of thinking, if I need to surrender to anyone or anything, that means I have to do or go through something I don’t want to.
What does it reveal about a person’s heart, though, if God says, “surrender to Me,” and we say — but I don’t want to? In my heart, I saw that even after all these years, all these sermons, all these degrees — I do not fully trust God’s character. What a slap in the face to Him, don’t you think?
DISCIPLE OR CONSULTANT?
If you or I resist surrendering to God, can we say we’re honestly following Jesus? I’m not sure I can. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m rebelling. Not intentionally, anyway. But I must instinctively interpret the Bible like this. When Jesus says, “lose your life for My sake,” I must read, “negotiate the areas of your life that you are willing to concede.” Or, “May Your Kingdom come,” I must kind of also pray, “May Your Kingdom come insofar as it lines up with my agenda for me.” At best, over the years, I think I’ve slowly started to try to come to a mutual agreement with God, rather than increasingly surrendering to fully following Jesus.
Maybe you can relate to this. If you’d like to know if you’re in a similar place, here’s one question you can ask yourself. When was the last time you heard from God — and He corrected you in a deep, decisive way? It had been a while for me.
If you think about it, though, we’re all surrendering our most intimate, tender affections and ambitions to someone or something. We surrender to a desire for comfort. Or control. Or even the honorable goal of being able to simply look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day — without shame.
Suppose you’re willing to take the risk to press this even further. In that case, you’ll find, as I am, that when I minimize God’s rule and surrender to those other things, I don’t tend to get what I thought I wanted anyway. And I lose confidence in my communion with God. Have you experienced this as well? Are you right now?
NO ONE COMPARES
The question then becomes, why wouldn’t we fully trust God and surrender to Him? Consider how He has revealed His character in Christ. He is gentle and humble in heart. He welcomes sinners and eats with them! He takes time to enjoy playing with children. He is near to the brokenhearted. He offers truth that will let us live in freedom.
Tim Keller points out that Jesus is the only one to which God ever said, “if you obey Me, I will leave you.” “If you surrender to me, I will forsake you.” And yet, Jesus responded by praying, “not my will, but yours be done.”
What love is that? Why wouldn’t we want to surrender to this protection? Who else is going to provide for us this deeply at this cost? The truth that sets us free is this — God loves us more than we love ourselves.
I am convinced that the only way for us to live with security and not anxiety, with joy and not fear, with humility and not pride, with dignity and not shame — is to fully surrender to the love of God that covers us with the righteousness of Christ alone.
THE KINGDOM IS HERE
Jesus truly offers an easy burden and light yolk. He wasn’t playing when He said that if we come to Him, living water will overflow from deep within us. The King of kings and the Lord of lords gives us rest — from ourselves.
There is a way to live filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. The Kingdom of God is here. We can experience it when we surrender to the King.
