Surrender is often viewed as “giving up” and doing nothing. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been learning a different definition of surrender – and what that looks like in a practical way for Christians trying to follow the will of God in this world. In a sense, surrender does mean giving up; it means giving up our own desires and plans in order to replace them with the Lord’s. It is a constant giving of our everything – every joy, every sorrow, every desire, every fear, every possession, every relationship – so that we may be aligned with how the Lord is asking us to serve.
There is so much more joy in serving when we know for a fact it is the Lord’s will. I have recently experienced a specific example of this. The Lord has given me the gift of playing violin and a heart to serve Him with that gift. Sometimes, however, I take it all for granted, expecting that I will be the one to play violin at such and such an event. Do you hear my prideful heart in this? It is a gift – to be used in the ways the Lord asks me to serve. This prideful heart leads to hurt when I am not chosen for something I am “qualified for.” But the Lord does not ask us to serve in every single thing we are qualified for; He asks us to serve wholeheartedly in what He does ask us to do.
Last week I sat down to surrender my heart and was surprised by how drastically the Lord changed my perspective. Earlier in the week, I had received a phone call from a woman from my church asking if I would play violin at her mother-in-law’s funeral. I agreed, not realizing what the Lord was doing in this. I had wanted to play at a different event and had not been chosen, but here was what the Lord was asking me to do. I came away from prayer that day encouraged to wholeheartedly play at the funeral, for this is what the Lord had asked me to do…and I was so very blessed.
Sometimes we do not surrender every part of ourselves to the Lord because we’re afraid of losing something…but nothing that is placed in the Lord’s hands is ever lost. When we release our grip on the things to which we cling so tightly, we receive showers of blessings from the Lord, and the Lord’s blessings are so much sweeter.