Surrender

I'm giving You my heart, and all that is within. I lay it all down, for he sake of You my King. I'm giving You my dreams, I'm laying down my rights. I'm giving up my pride, for the promise of new life. And I surrender all to You, all...to You.

Surrender. Webster defines it as "the giving up of oneself or a possession to another." When I hear the word "surrender", I automatically think of those war movies where they fly the white flag of retreat. Think about it; at the end of The Patriot, the English general, Cornwallis, surreners to the French. At the end of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese finally surrender to the Americans. Surrender-to give up oneself....to give up hope.

But wait; aren't we supposed to surrender everything to God? And doesn't hope come from God? So how could surrendering mean giving up all hope?

It doesn't.

Shawn McDonald sings "I have tasted a love so wide, that it stops all my time. And I have tasted a love so deep, that it blows my mind." Don't we all crave this, something that will capture our hearts and make time seem to stand still? With the hustle and bustle of life, we seem to lose touch with peace. Webster defines peace as "[a] state of calm and quiet." I have to disagree. That's contentment, which is about a step short of peace.

Someone once described peace to me as "...the world seems right. You know your decisions are right, but only because you know that God is in it. It's a God-given contentment." You know God is in it because you surrender it to God. In Psalm 34:4, David writes "I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears." Isn't David saying that he surrendered to God? By surrendering, you give him complete control. You stop grabbing the pen from the Author to try to write your own story. You give him the blank sheet and pen, and you let Him write your epic tale. Does this mean that your going to pray one night, and *Poof* the very next morning you have all the answers.

Right, as if life were that simple.

No, you may not receive the answers right away; in fact, you may not even get a clear path to where you want to go. But you are giving God the situation and trusting him with what He knows will ultimately benefit you in the end. It's scary yes, but in the end, it's worth it. My gosh, is it worth it!

And I surrender all to you, all...to You.

Life is Strange!

(Yes I did already publish this one, but I'm doing it again...and adding to it)

Life is so strange sometimes! It's like, just when life is starting to feel comfortable and manageable, God throws in a surprise jsut to say "Wait a minute, your not relying on me. Your becoming too comfortable. Stop relying on yourself and let me take hold of your life." The ironic thing is that these surprises, these curveballs in life are not meant to harm us (although a lot of the time, we definitely aren't comfortable with them), but only to help us....to be used to help us grow; to help us learn to give everything over to God. One of my favorite quotes is from the movie "Extreme Days." The movie is basically about these four guys that grow up, and plan their lives with no room for interuptions. When one of the guys' grandfather dies, the boys take off on a roadtrip to claim the inheritance, and all come back with a lesson learned. At the end of the movie, the main character, Will, says "When God throws you a curveball, don't duck; you might just miss something." We may not be able to choose when the curveball comes, but we can choose when to stop ducking and hit it head on.

So do you think that maybe these curveballs that God gives us (or roadbumps, barriers, dips, ruts, etc) may be telling us to focus on what is right in front of us at the time? Maybe we're becoming to "independent"...maybe we're trying to control a situation that ultimately God can only control. I heard something the other day that said, "In our determination to find what was lost we have ultimately gotten lost along the way." Basically, by focusing on the answers to the questions, we have forgotten what the question really was. So maybe these curveballs really aren't curveballs, but helpful hands guiding us to the real path.

The Calling.

I'm told that we all have a calling that we're supposed to pursue. We all have something that we're supposed to be heading towards, something that God has set aside for us. For some people, it's something incredible that people can look at and go "Wow! I always knew you'd be good at that!" For some, it's more subtle and less common, but can still be seen as an extreme calling from God. But what do you call a "calling" that is something everyone is eventually called to? What if that is your passion, your dream? Should you even call it a dream or calling when it's something so...common and usual that, it's going to happen eventually, so why head for it now? Why want it with everything in you when it's just going to take a little time to get where you need to be?

And if you feel like that is your calling, what do you do in the meantime? Do you find other things that, since everyone else is doing them and has told you that you need to be doing it too, those seem like the things to go for? What about that passion you have. What do you do with it while your beginning your life the "right" way? And why do you have to go with what society says? Ever since we were kids, everyone has always said "Don't conform to what everyone else thinks, do things your own way." But yet we still conform. We still do what society thinks we should, and not necessarily what we think we should. But where do we find all the "calling" in all the social requirements?

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Dwelling on the past is what brings us down. We all have events that we think "If I could just go back and change that one little thing, life would be oh so much better." These can be decisions that we ourselves have made, things we decided against, or even things that were out of our control. But why do we dwell on them? I'm sure some of them hurt really bad. I know for me, that's usually the case. But why dwell on it with the wishful thinking of "Why can't I just change it?" Why do we long to change something that can now be called history? it's in the past, we need to move on.

Looking back often on the unchangable is what hinders us from moving forward, from turning the pages, and we almost get into a tug-of-war with God over who gets to hold the pen that writes our story. Moving forward involves giving up the past, good or bad, and letting God take the pen and write the Story of our lives. How many things, compared to the past, do we have to look forward to in the future? In my opinion the possibilities are endless. How many good things in the future can possibly outweigh the pain of the past? Once again, endless possibilities. But these things only happen when God has the pen, not us. so why not give up what has already happened, be excited for what is happening and move forward with wonder at what is going to happen?