Delightful Surrender

When I think of the word surrender, I think of some type of battle being fought.  There are two sides, perhaps a good side and a bad side, both struggling to be the winner.  But perhaps neither is good nor bad, but simply two different wills, two different agendas, two different views of how something should be done.  In many ways, our Christian walk is a process of daily surrender.  Our wills, our desires and plans for each day, along with God’s will for us can sometimes, oftentimes, bring us to a place where we need to surrender.  Romans 12:1 says:  Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer, or surrender, your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your act of worship.  I especially like the version found in The Message:  so here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:  Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life- and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.

In other words, when I look to God at the beginning of each day, when I surrender my busy schedule to His Plan for my day….it then becomes a beautiful thing.  I find that there is enough time in each day to get all accomplished that needs to be done according to His schedule for my day.  He sets the pace, if I allow Him to.  Now  I can live and move and walk in His peace, knowing that the day, the week or the circumstance may not look at all how I would have planned it.  Now it looks the way it should because I allowed God to transform my thoughts and my actions into what He would have them to be.  His plan for my day then becomes my plan and it is good and pleasing in His sight.

What might this look like in my life, this surrender on a daily basis?  This could look like me taking the time, one of my most precious things to give, out of an already full weekend, to visit an elderly friend or relative, so that God’s spirit can love them through me.  This might look like me changing my plans at the last minute and submitting to my husband’s plans without a complaining spirit, so that I can be obedient to God’s Word when it says in Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as it fitting in the Lord.  Or, this might look like me going everyday into the workplace and not being conformed to the environment all around me, but through the power of the Spirit being transformed so that a lost and dying world all around me can see Jesus through me.

There is one more part to this daily surrender that we need to consider.  That is the word- DELIGHTFUL.  Psalm 40:8 says:  I delight to do thy will, O my God:  yea Thy law is within my heart.  As I meditate, study and memorize His Word, it becomes a part of me, so much so, that I delight in daily surrender to His will.  Why can I do this?  Because Psalm 40:1-3 says:  …as I waited patiently for the Lord, He heard my cry.  He did not leave me crying, but He brought me up out of the horrible pit, set my feet upon a rock and established my ways.  So when I cry out to Him, He hears me, puts me in a good place and shows me the way to go.  Finally verse 3 says:  He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.  I can have a spirit of delightful surrender each day because as I yield to Him, He puts a song in my heart and a song in my mouth.  Through my song many shall trust in the Lord.

Lord, through my daily, delightful surrender to You, may many come to a closer walk with You.

Lisa

Comments

[Daisy]

Thanks Lisa for this post. Surrender is so hard sometimes but you are right. It should be a delight for us to please Him.