Surrender and Simplicity – Part 1
I love it when God speaks to me. Sometimes it comes through His written word, another person, a gentle nudge, a sense, or just that still, small voice. He does it in a variety of ways and I love that about Him!
As 2020 came to a close, two things came to me very clearly through the Holy Spirit:
Surrender
Simplicity
I wrote these words in my journal on December 31st: “I leave 2020 surrendered to you, Lord. I let go. After a year of great turmoil and personal loss, You remain faithful.”
Not only was it a year of great turmoil, but it was the hardest year of my life and yet here was God telling me to surrender. What? Him telling me to surrender may not sound very comforting to you, especially considering all I had just gone through, but I’ve had such an unfolding revelation of the love of the Father over the past few years that it was actually comforting to me. Our Father disciplines us because He loves, right?
What does it mean to surrender to someone? Webster’s Dictionary defines the verb “surrender” this way:
To surrender – To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand.
Not only was it surrender that He was asking of me, but unconditional surrender. An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party. The only guarantee He gave me was the promise that He would never leave me or forsake me, and what a great promise that is! But the level of surrender He was calling me to would have no other guarantees. The Apostle Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, had this to say:
“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:12-14 NASB)
Forgetting those things that are behind? It sounds contradictory for me to quote that since I just finished a five part blog recounting our experience of Becky’s illness and passing, doesn’t it? The Passion Translation puts verse 13 like this: “ I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead.” It’s all about what I choose to focus on. It’s not that I won’t remember it anymore, it’s just that when I do I’ll choose to focus on God’s goodness and faithfulness. The forgetting that Paul is talking about really means to not care about. It’s not at the forefront of my mind anymore. Instead, I’m fastening my heart to the future.
I have no idea what my future holds, which is all the more why I need to be completely surrendered to Him. He is good and His plans for me are good. When you come to realize the depths to which you are loved by your Creator, surrender will be the response to that love. The Son of God, Himself, left His throne, laid aside certain privileges, and took on the form of a man. He lived as a man completely surrendered to the will of His Father. He faced every temptation that I have or ever will and overcame it. I want to be conformed to the image of that Son (Rom. 8:29).
The reason Paul could forget all of the past (and he had quite a past) was that he had been captured by Christ. He had been arrested, so to speak, by One who loves His people so much that He would say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul, who became Paul, may not have realized it at that moment, but he had been captured by the love of Christ! He even refers to himself as a “prisoner of Jesus Christ” later in some of his letters to the churches. I’ve been captured by the love of Christ too. No, I didn’t get knocked to the ground and blinded for three days like Saul, but I’ve had numerous times, especially in the past six months, where I have felt so overwhelmed by His love that all I could do was lay on the floor and surrender to waves of love that felt like fire.
Since I was a kid, I’ve asked the Lord countless times to “do something in my life” as I’m sure many of you have. “Do something in my life” is a legitimate prayer, but have you ever been “undone” by Him? The prophet Isaiah said he was undone (ruined) when he saw the Lord sitting on His throne (Is. 6). The apostle John saw the Lord and fell at His feet as though dead (Rev. 1). When you have had undeniable encounters with Him you are forever ruined. Surrender comes easy to someone who has been ruined for anything else. In John’s encounter with Jesus on the island of Patmos, he describes Jesus as having eyes like a flame of fire. That picture comes to my mind quite often when I’m in prayer and it melts me. Imagine what it did to John. Those eyes burn with fiery, passionate love for us and when we get a glimpse of it we are forever ruined.
Undo us, Lord.
Kevin