“Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).” One of the toughest challenges of our walk with Christ is to totally surrender. It’s not always easy yielding to the power of another especially when you think your way is better.
When our sons were younger, they often liked querying their parents. They had a habit of asking us questions that somehow we knew nothing about. After giving incorrect answers several times, we’d hear, “You give up? You give up? Just hearing those words would really irk me, but if I wanted to know the answer, in which most times I did, I’d say, “I give up”. Those little faces would brighten up like a Christmas tree because they had something to share that I wanted to know.
Oftentimes, our walk with Christ requires that we surrender. We think we know the way. We think we have the right answers but our way continues to fail us.
God wants us to surrender our will, our way, our thoughts, our motives, and every good idea to him. He is waiting for us with a loving heart and out stretched arms to give us the answer that we really need. But, only if we surrender to His power will we be fulfilled.
We must surrender ourselves into the power of Almighty God to experience peace that surpasses all understanding.
We must admit to God that we just don’t know the answer but we are desperately seeking his will to fulfill our destiny.
We must let God know that we need him and we cannot do anything without.
Imagine God smiling on the other side of your surrender saying, “You give up?”, only to embrace you with wisdom and spiritual insights that you will never know until you say, “I give up”.
"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it (Mark 8:35).”
OUR PRAYER
Father, as much as it hurts to surrender because I am so selfish, I know your grace is greater than any pain that I can experience.
I recognize that I am going no where fast because I am trying to live life without you. It's not working. You already know this.
I totally surrender to you my thoughts, ways, ideas, and my imperfections. You can have it all because everything that I am trying to do is failing.
Holy Spirit, take my heart, my mind, and my soul. I surrender my life to Almighty God and for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
~inspiring hope and seasoning faith,
Dr. Regina M. Daigre