I recently had the privilege of talking with Byron Tyler for his show, Mid-South View Point, on the Bott Radio Network. If you missed the interview, you can listen here.
Byron and I talked a lot about surrender. As Christ-followers we often think of surrender in terms of God asking us to yield our future dreams and plans or give up the comfortable things in our lives. Will He call me to quit my job and move far from everyone and everything I know? Will He require that I live without someone I deeply love? Will He ask me to do something bold and terrifying instead of living a quiet and safe life?
Surrender can look like any of those things. But living a life completely and totally submitted to Him means relinquishing everything–the comfortable, yes, but also the broken, the messy, the painful things–and allowing Him to have His way in all of it.
So, Byron asked me practically what that looked like in real life. I don’t know if you’ve ever been asked a tough question with a microphone pointed straight at you and a timer rapidly counting down, but it can be a little daunting. I responded, but in that moment couldn’t fully articulate what was in my heart. Because I know that surrender is a relatively easy thing to talk about, but the daily, even moment by moment, journey down that path is infinitely more difficult.
I’m generally not a fan of articles or books that claim to have all the answers and solve all our problems in “Five Easy Steps.” Life is not that simple. But I do believe there are three critical principles we have to settle in our hearts and minds to live utterly surrendered to God and to His will and purpose.
The first of those precepts is that we must have a right concept of who God is and a right concept of who we are not and can never be.
But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16) When we decide to follow Christ, we become His image bearers and instantly begin a journey toward holiness. Growing in holiness means becoming loving, good, merciful, faithful, truthful, patient, just, kind (to name a few!) It means putting off our old self and putting on new desires, new motivations, new life. And although it is not easy and we should never expect to perfectly attain it, through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us we can absolutely make progress in our pursuit of holiness.
But God is also many things we are not and can never, ever be: omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, eternal, sovereign. It is deeply concerning and convicting to me, that although we are called to holiness, what we most often strive for instead is to be like Him in all the ways we are not called to be. God alone is all powerful, yet how often do we attempt to control? He alone holds all knowledge and wisdom, yet how often do we believe we know what is best and have it all figured out? God is the only one qualified for and capable of sovereignty over all things, yet how often do we try to place ourselves on the throne and wrongly pray, “my will be done?”
Since we are to strive for holiness with Christ as our example, then let us consider Philippians 2:6-7. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Jesus Christ, the very incarnation of the Son of the Holy Trinity, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped! Jesus was fully God but willingly submitted to the plans of the Father. And yet, we attempt equality with God every day.
We will never be capable of living a surrendered life until we stop trying to be God–until we get that only God is God and we are not! We must understand who He is, and consequently, how we fall short. “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.” (Isaiah 46:8-9)
And if we truly have this right perspective, then surrender should not be a struggle. In fact, through it we should find freedom! We are limited but have a limitless, sovereign God who has numbered our days, prepared good works for us, who establishes our steps. If we really know Him and His character how can we not trust Him? How can we not surrender our everything, our all–our comfort, our pain, our joy, our tears, our failures, our dreams? When we understand and are in awe of who God is the idea of surrender should not leave us breathless from fear but the anticipation of seeing how God will work in our lives should take our breath away!!
(Part 2 and 3 of Three Essentials for a Surrendered Life are forthcoming. You can sign up to receive e-mail alerts for new blog posts by clicking here.)