Surrender Belongs To God

Oh how the Lord has been speaking to me of the importance of surrender. He has had me in a place of seeing my surrendered heart tied to more purity in being a follower and an usher of Christ. He has woven this surrender into freedom from shame and fear of man, and even into who I am at the very deepest level. Our truest identity is built right here in this place…the place where we lay prostrate in our hearts open to all He is in us, for us and through us–the place where we give up who we think we are and put on His robes of promise–the place where all the things holding us back from knowing God in the most intimate ways fall off and He so inhabits our hearts that we cannot help but usher in His presence to a world that is desperate for Him.

Surrender is a process God takes us through to purify us, and through this process he delivers us deeper into Him and all of who He is. The destination of surrender is a continual place of yielding to His movement in us and through us; it is a place all about the One where intimacy flows, unifying us with the very heart of God.

What surrender is not is a doing, striving place of angst where we always walk away feeling like we have failed. So how do we take the yoke of striving away from surrender? How do we peel back the layers of living life with a surrendered heart yet letting God do the work?

I have always thought of surrender as something I had to work at doing. For me it felt like an impossible task of letting things go, that, If I'm being honest, I wasn't even sure I wanted to give up. I did not want to let go of the only identity I had ever known. I didn’t even want to let go of the pain and grief I was carrying because it had been the biggest part of me for so long. There is comfort in the things that feel normal to you even if they are the very things that are holding you back from your truest identity in Christ. Letting go of these things can feel like the ripping off of a bandaid from the most tender of wounds. It hurts. I know.

Surrender felt like a place I had to get to where I successfully handed everything over to God all at the same time. I longed to feel like I had come to the end of myself and given every little thing of me to God. Surrender became a finish line and I fell short every single time.

Recently, the Lord showed me a picture of true surrender in my dreams and it was so beautiful it still takes my breath away. In the dream, I was lying on the floor with my feet up in the air and the Spirit of God was moving my arms and legs in the most beautiful dance–I could feel the beauty with every ounce of my being. I was at complete rest while He was moving me in ways that made those around me stand in awe of Him. This was surrender. This was the clean and pure move of the Spirit through me and it was not achieved by anything I was doing. It was the work of the Spirit. And as I lay there, yielded to the direction and demonstration of God, I knew all of the things that held me back from fully encountering Him and displaying who He is to the world, were falling off of me at the work of His hands.

He is the one who brings you to this place of surrender and he is the one who directs the process. What rest this should give our hearts!

So how do we get to this place of surrender? I believe we come to surrender when we fully turn our hearts toward The One.  Surrender is a place of deep intimacy formed through our passionate union with God. It comes when the deepest cry of our heart is for Him and Him alone. It is a place where the only thing that matters is Him and the only thing we seek is His heart.

Surrender is found in deep intimacy and through a yielded heart.

It is a place where everything of the world falls away in comparison to his love. It is a place where all the things holding us back from who He has created us to be are left behind and in their place is everything he says we are.

Dance with me in the hours just before daybreak

The place where night is coming to a close and dawn is birthing its light

Your intimate gaze is upon me as I yield all of me to your hands

Move in me in a beautiful dance of our love– sacred and passionate and irresistible to those around me

Surrender my heart that I may fully usher You into the world like a river onto the dry and thirsty riverbanks

I yield everything in me to the everything you are, my lover and my King