* An Eye-Opener

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
Romans 12:1 NLT

Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
Psalm 37:7a GWT

I'm just going to be gut level honest. The idea of surrender is foreign to me. I don't like the sound of it. I don't like the idea of it. There is nothing in me that wants to lose... and that's how I have viewed surrender all my life. Until today.

I am still in the process of accepting that I really can't control life. I have the head knowledge of it, but let's just say it hasn't completely transformed my life, as yet... and it all comes down to surrendering. God is so infinitely patient - I don't know how He puts up with me most days. For quite awhile now, I have been confronted with the idea of surrender. Just hearing that word in relation to anything in my life makes me want to fight. 

However, this morning, I read two passages of Scripture that I've read so many times before and even journaled on them before, but I saw them in a whole new light today. The first in Luke 5:5, when Peter worked all night fishing and caught nothing. He'd been washing out his nets when Jesus got in and asked him to row out a little so He could speak to the multitudes. Even though Peter was not yet a disciple, he did so. Then when Jesus was done speaking, He told Peter to launch out into the deep and let down his nets. Peter (who we learn later usually speaks and acts without thinking first) states that he'd already fished all night without catching anything, but surrenders and says, "Nevertheless at Your word..." And you know how that story ends.

The second passage which was the most eye-opening for me was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I never saw that story as an actual act or choice to surrender. I always saw it as total adherence to following God's will and purpose, but never connected it as a surrender. I don't know why, maybe because I always think of Christ as perfectly aligned with the Father. And yet, there it is, bigger than life, the greatest act of surrender ever recorded! 

Present your bodies a living sacrifice... I don't remember who it was that said, "The problem with a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar, so you may have to resurrender your life fifty times a day." That's a real eye-opener.

Prayer:

Father,
          Open our eyes to see Your Truth. Open our minds to understand it and open our hearts to embrace it. We want to be holy and acceptable to You, fully surrendered to Your will and Your purpose for our lives. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen