Surrender: A New Year’s Resolution
Early last year, I attended a women’s conference for the first time in my life – the HeartStrong Faith Conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect, except that there would be a lot of women and I might go away with a verse to remember. Honestly, my expectations were not high – this renewed walk with God was still very fresh and I was worried about feeling left out or not being able to relate to anything they were talking about. But a friend had invited me and I was determined to go outside my comfort zone. It turned out to be a great decision – the speakers were engaging, the atmosphere was authentic, and I really did hear from the Lord that day.
One of the speakers was Debbie Stuart, a Texas Native well-known on the Christian women’s speaking circuit for her great humor and powerful, heart-rending testimony. She was in rare form and I was truly touched by the testimony she shared of God’s work in her life despite the heartache and pain that has impacted her family. However, the most meaningful part of her time on the stage, and indeed what became one of the few things I took away from the conference, was the idea of a word for the year. Coming into the end of every year, she prays to God for a word to give her a framework and guidance for the new year – one she can use to remind her to cling to God no matter what the year brings. She challenged the couple thousand women in attendance to find their own word they felt God was giving them for the year and own it.
The challenge struck me in that, even as she was presenting it, I had my word: Reliance.
2017 was a strange year for me. It is the first year in which my life really seemed to be centered on Christ and I opened myself up to the movement of the Holy Spirit. I was placed in situations where I truly had to rely on (and learn to wait on) God’s provision instead of my own, whether that was financial, physical, relational, emotional, or spiritual. It was a humbling experience that I hope continues to develop me into 2018. But as 2017 began to close, I started to wonder, was there a new word for the new year? I prayed and prayed, but couldn’t really come up with anything. And then the winter break hit, things happened that rightfully pulled my prayers away from a word for me to praying for healing for another, and in the end the frenzy of the Christmas holiday got the better of me. Prayer, dedicated time in the Word, it fell off.
New Year’s Eve Day was a Sunday, and my mother and I went to church discussing end of the year plans. However, it wasn’t until the worship leader asked us to stand and worship God on the very last day of 2017 that it hit me that it was, in fact, the last day of 2017 – a fact I blurted aloud with some excitement and anxiety to my mother while worship was in session.
As I sat in service, I wondered about how I was ending the year, and what I was going to do in the new year. A word that I kept hearing during the service was “surrender”. The sermon wasn’t about that – the church had just gotten a new pastor and he was preaching on what qualities God wants in a man of God. But that word “surrender” kept popping up and it stuck with me after service concluded. I thought to myself, “What does God want me to surrender to him in 2018?” Answer: Everything.
There is something kind of nebulous about saying I want to surrender everything to God. I think, as Christians, we throw that around with a strange ease and comfort that doesn’t give the proper gravity to the meaning of the word or the situation. We think of Christ surrendering his all on the cross and sing “I Surrender All” in return. But in looking at my life, the phrase has only applied to areas in which I don’t mind losing all of that. I surrender my Sunday, I surrender Wednesday nights, I surrender my ten minutes in the morning for prayer. I can give those things up without losing too much in the rest of my daily life. After all, our lives are too busy to be giving him our hobbies, our free time, our careers and work life, our families and our relationships, our friends, our dating lives (if we have one), our finances, our homes, our health, our past triumphs and failures, the secrets of our life and our hopes and dreams for the future. But our God does want little bits of us – he wants everything.
But truthfully, when that word hit me, there was something rather scary about it. But as I thought about it more, I could feel God telling me, “This isn’t going to be more of the same surrendering. This is the word I’m giving you, and you will have to cling to me to survive it this year.” Sounds kind of like a threat, huh? But there was actually a lot of comfort in knowing that my God loves me enough to let me know that there will be things coming my way and, if I don’t learn to give up what it is I think I need, I won’t survive with what I truly need.
And the things that come to mind aren’t vague, but very real – my anxieties about what my career is supposed to be, the slight depression that can sometimes come with hitting another birthday with some personal dreams unrealized, the frustration of having ended the year without a church to call home, the stresses that seem to come from day-to-day responsibilities, the continued struggle to extend grace and release pride, and just the general unease of living in a country and world where everything can sometimes be too fast, too emotional, too polarized, too deep, and too antagonistic to take a deep breath.
All that needs to go.
My prayer for 2018, for myself and for those searching for God’s will in this present age, is that surrender to him is not contingent on insecurities, how God fits into preconceived plans, or what others think a personal walk with him should look like. That a desire to serve him and others unconditionally would override the my need to be first in life, whether its at work, in my family, in my free time, at the grocery store, in my singleness, in my struggles and in my joy. And that only happens if I’m willing to put it all on the altar. That means living consciously, seeking his will in all decisions, all interactions. Coming to him first when major decisions loom, and continuously lifting all of life’s daily trials and sudden storms to him in prayer. This means releasing whatever ideas I had for myself on what life would look like by now or even five years from now, understand that God could still work his will out that way, but no matter what, his will is going to be a lot better than anything I imagined. This means living freely in grace and truth, in how I know God would have me do that, and being intentional to extend that same love to others. That means being more like Christ every day.
I love these verses in Matthew 11:28-30 – “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Sometimes it feels like what God is asking us to surrender is a treasure we can’t live without. But we don’t realize that many of the things we prize are just burdens we’re laboring under that keep us comfortable and distracted from what God is seeking to do with us. It’s interesting – Christ doesn’t say, “Come with your burdens, and you will never have to carry anything again.” He says that there is still a cross to bear (Matthew 16:24-26), but not only will he teach us how to bear it, he will carry it with us.
I believe God will do a good work in me this year, and I pray that his Spirit guide and protect me so that I can accomplish what he has for me in this year of surrender. I’m excited (and scared) at the prospect! What about you? What is God showing you for the new year and are you prepared to all him to do it through you?