A word I combat with on a daily basis.
The act of submitting to an authority.
A move that God calls us to do consistently.
Surrender.
As I move through the season of life I am in, I have noticed a few things. First, I am incapable of doing anything on my own. Second, human nature causes me to want to do everything on my own. Finally, in order to do all things in life, it is necessary that we hand them over to God.
Surrender can happen in a variety of areas in our lives; schooling, work, volunteer work, personal health so on and so forth. However, where I have noticed surrender to be fully necessary in my life lately, and maybe some of you can relate, is through relationships. As followers of Christ, we are called to be in community and love one another as Christ loves us. Romans 12: 4-6 says,
"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith" (NIV)
The message version is my favorite.
"In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts of Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves to one another , or trying to be something we aren't."
1 John 4:11,
"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (NIV)
1 Peter 3:8,
"Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble." (NIV)
As I meditate on this verses, I think,
"Wow God.. these are some big pursuits you have given us."
How are we ever supposed to live up to this?
In Matthew 16: 24-25 says to his disciples,
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." (NIV)
Mark 10: 27 Jesus said,
"With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." (NIV)
" No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it." (MSG)
I go back to my original thought about God giving us some big pursuits. I stand by that thought.. God has given us a huge job in telling us to love our neighbors and live in community. For me, I find it easy to want to live in community and want to love those I am in relationship with the way Jesus loves us.
However, when I try to live these actions out on my own.. I end up feeling hurt, alone and angry.
In the last few months I have lost several friendships, struggled to keep a relationship afloat and become very angry in the fact that I am trying to live like Christ and am not seeing any difference in my life. Well, as I write these words, it sinks in that I need to stop trying so much and start trusting much more. This is something I have grown up knowing I need to do, but knowing something and living it out are two separate entities.
I have surrendered to Christ in the past. Like many of you probably have, I said a prayer giving my relationships to Christ. I asked him to live through me but, the more time I spend with God, the more I realize I missed a huge part of this process. We are not asked to surrender to God once and then we are finished. Surrendering to God is a daily operation in which we ask him to take part of the friendship or relationship that is falling apart or ask him to live through you when you encounter the leader you struggling to respect. In addition, he asks us to give him the praise when a relationship or friendship is going really well. We offer him all praises, giving the good, bad and ugly of our lives. We are all a different part of the body of Christ, and therefore will struggle with different things when it comes to relationships and loving one another. With the help of God and our ability to surrender to him, we can overcome these struggles.
We are called to love others and live in community. We are also called to surrender fully and completely to Christ. In seeking to give Christ-like love and live in Christ-like community, let's surrender. Let's stop trying to do everything on our own and dwell in the fact that we have a father who wants to guide and support us.
