Surrender Is A Daily Choice
Daily exercise is engrained in me. I have even gone so low in life to place my identity around it. I graduated college with a degree in Exercise Science and have been instructing individuals on healthy exercise ever since. Where most days I wake up excited to exercise, there are definitely days I do not. Exercising each day is a choice. We have lots of choices in life; what to eat, what kind of mood we will be in, what we wear, and who we will spend our time with. We wake up each morning, and as soon as we open our eyes the decision-making process begins.
While the decision to believe in Jesus and make Him your Lord and Savior might be a one-time decision, deciding to surrender everything over to Him is not. Every morning is a new day full of new experiences. Luke 9:23 says, “Then he (Jesus) said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’” We must wake up each morning with the willingness to surrender everything over to God. This can be very tricky because our life sometimes gets in the way. We wake up to crying babies, screaming alarm clocks, anxiety with what the day brings, and the need to control how our day unfolds. We as humans make surrender a tricky and hard thing to do. Satan makes us believe that if we surrender all our plans, desires, and details of our lives over to God then our worlds will fall apart. He makes us think we have control over ourselves, those around us, and even God. Even though we know Satan has already been defeated, he relentlessly desires to defeat God and that overflows into harsh persecution of God’s people.
When we decide each morning to fully surrender our day to God, we live out of step with the world. Jesus died for us, and we also must die to the world. We must die to our own interests, priorities, and plans, and surrender what this world values. Surrender brings us opportunities each day to choose God’s will over our own. When we do this, we are matured into seeing that God’s pleasure matters more than our own comfort.
We are at the beginning of the Lenten season. If you are sacrificing something for lent, it is a daily choice to continue with that sacrifice and to not fall into the temptation to pick it back up. Following Christ is costly. When we fail to understand this costliness we are led to a superficial and shallow view of what God requires of us. We are allowing Jesus to carry His own cross and be hung on it while we stand and watch without ever having to sacrifice anything ourselves. Surrender is sacrifice that must be chosen daily. Each day brings new circumstances, agendas, and choices that we must surrender to God. The blessings Christians receive through their surrender is far greater than whatever following Him costs.
When we change our perspective on surrender to a choice instead of a demand we can step into it with a different approach. We can choose to allow God’s plan to have authority over our own. He already does have authority over everyone and everything, so fighting it is not worth it. He is in control, He knows what is best for you individually, and He knows the end of the story. You do not have the ability to do any of these things. Give it all to the One who does.
Digging Deeper:
What choices do you make each morning?
How can you remind yourself each morning to surrender your day over to God?
What in particular is God calling you to surrender over to Him?