Absolute Surrender

As with most new year’s, many of us find ourselves being reflective of the year we have just journeyed through as well contemplative toward the new year we are preparing to embrace.

Yesterday I typed out two pages of goals or resolutions for the new year. However, today as I am spending time alone and asking God what He wants from me going into the new year, the answer doesn’t have much at all to do with my two pages of carefully typed out goals.

Instead, I realize that at the core of everything that is happening in my world lies one emotion which has the power to rob me from everything of life: fear. 

Fear, by definition, is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” 

I have been praying for many months for God to remove fear from within me. I know that fear is not from God. Some days I feel peace, but many days I have allowed fear to tighten its grip on my heart. 

This morning as I began to put together a plan for the upcoming year, I felt the grip of fear once again. 

“What is it that I am afraid of, God?” I asked, already aware of the answer to my question. My core desire is to trust God, and yet I am afraid to trust God implicitly (without qualification: absolutely). It’s a confusing juxtaposition. 

What might it cost me were I to trust Him with absolute surrender?

Absolute surrender is what God desires from me—and from each one of his children. 

Unbounded trust.

We cannot surrender part of ourselves, part of our marriages, part of our families or part of our careers to God. He wants all of us. Every thought, every breath, every word, every action. 

Absolute surrender. 

In the Gospel of Mark, a demon-possessed child needs deliverance. The father of the child had asked the other disciples to drive out the spirit but they could not. Jesus addressed the child’s father:

“How long has he been like this?”

“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“If you can?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

How desperately the child’s father wanted to believe that he could trust his life and his child’s life to Jesus. 

Thankfully, God does not expect us to have absolute surrender to Him on our strength. 

In I Corinthians 2 we read, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. (vs. 9&10) It goes on to say, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (vs.12)

We don’t have to figure out how to fully surrender to God. He has given us His Spirit and He has given us the mind of Christ (vs. 16). With childlike faith we can pray and ask Jesus to change us to become more like Him. 

The antidote for fear is love. God is love (I Jn. 4:16) “There is no fear in love. but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” (I Jn. 4:18)

Are you willing to join me and enter the new year with absolute surrender to God?

“Everything is possible for him who believes.” 

Stay the course…

Sheila

Today’s prayer: “Father, I come before you with empty hands and a heart that desires to surrender to You fully. There is nothing that I can do in my strength that has the power to change my heart. I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief. Holy Spirit, I permit You to fill me with all of You and to do whatever needs to be done within me to empty me of myself. Show me daily what my life is to look like as I continue to seek Your face and Your will. All that I have and all that I am are Yours. In Jesus’ name, amen.”