Surrendering fully to God is challenging because it requires us to be comfortable with the fact that God is in control of the unknown. It’s an exercise in putting down our desires, expectations, and personal visions for life, and in trusting in the unknown God has set in place for our lives, even before we were born. What I’ve come to learn as a Christian is that surrendering our lives to God is not only a one-time event but also a continuous, daily process.
As children of God, Jesus calls us to a radical kind of surrender, in which we set aside our desires that aren’t aligned with His will and deny ourselves. In the story of the young rich ruler, a man approaches Jesus, telling Him how he has followed the law, wondering what else he can do to have eternal life, saying, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?” Jesus tells the young man, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:20-21). Jesus saw that, despite the fact that the young man followed the law, his heart was still attached to his earthly wealth and not fully surrendered to God. God examines every crevice of our hearts.
The Manifestations of Not Surrendering
Refusing to surrender can manifest in many ways, such as stubbornness, defiance, or attachment to our desires or possessions, as in the case of the rich young ruler. It can even manifest as fear due to a lack of faith. Personally, I’ve been approaching a sort of crossroads and facing a pretty significant decision. I’ve been battling fear, and it’s revealed to me that, in this area of my life, my trust in God is limited; I haven’t fully surrendered it to God. As I’m going through this process, I have brought this situation to God, expecting to hear a concrete, direct answer from Him or to see a sign of confirmation, only to be met with silence.
At first, it was so frustrating and discouraging. However, God works in ways we do not understand; sometimes, He reveals His will explicitly, sometimes we get glimpses, and sometimes, we get silence. But I’ve learned that it’s in that silence that God wants us to draw toward Him, to seek Him with all of our hearts. And even in this silence, God still speaks to us through His word in the Bible, through conviction, through steady guidance. The key is not to grow weary, but to continue to pursue Him.
Surrendering ≠ Idleness
Surrendering to God is not a call to complete inaction in our lives. It’s a call to give God our plans, dreams, desires, and fears, and allow Him to have His way. It’s total cooperation with God so that He can align our will with His, and so we can become what He called us to be, living lives that exemplify His goodness and faithfulness. I see it as a form of freedom. So, Jesus calls us to radical change, surrendering ourselves to Him so that we can have newness of life and walk in the path He sets for us.
Often, surrender can be difficult or confusing as we wait for God’s direction, or even as we struggle to let go of what we’ve envisioned for our lives in order to receive what God has destined for us. I’ve held on to two verses that have helped me through the process of relinquishing my decisions to the Lord: Matthew 6:26-27, which says, “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature?” and the second: Psalm 25:4-5, “Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day.”
Is there any aspect of your life where you have yet to surrender all? I pray that God instills in us a spirit of humility and increases our faith in Him so that we can walk in obedience, fully surrendered to His will for our lives.
