"the me I want to be" Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Surrender: The One Decision That Always Helps

Reflections

"I will keep this area, this pattern, this relationship under my own control. I will hang on to this grudge. I will enjoy the pleasure I get from this habit. I know you want full surrender but I don't trust you."

I will... and I know... but... I DON'T...

When I read this quote I immediately thought, "Wow...that really hits home right now." I consider myself a faithful servant of God. Someone who has truly given her life to Christ in such a way that it is no longer her own. Many of the decisions I made have felt like true leaps of faith (but that's a long story, for another post, at another time). However, there is one thing that is hard for me to surrender to God, to completely relinquish control of.


For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be married. I wrote a list of requirements when I was about 12 that included things like; a true gentleman, must open doors, must pull out chairs, must be athletic, must enjoy long walks on the beach, etc. Sounds like something you'd read in the classifieds, doesn't it? And I made sure that God knew what these "requirements" were. Ever since, if I'm in a relationship or dating someone, I ask myself, "Could I marry this person?" If the answer is no, I break it off.

In the last couple of weeks, I've spent some time with a good friend of mine who I used to date. I even thought that I could marry him. In many ways we were reminded of why we were together. When we talked about it we brought up all the reasons why we aren't together (all of which are very good reasons). For me, all of the frustrations that I felt in the past resurfaced. I spent the weekend crying and moping around, praying and asking God, "Why can't I just be married?!" (in that whiny, two-year-old, I-want-it-my-way voice) Eventually I realized that I was talking as if it were my life. It's not my life and I don't get to have it my way.

As a communications scholar, I recognize the importance of word choice. Language and word choice are representative of mindset and perspective. I don't know if you noticed but there was a discrepancy in language, and therefore mindset, earlier in this post. First I said, "I live in such a way that my life is no longer my own." Then I said, "Could I marry this person?" If its not my life it doesn't matter if I could marry him. I need to ask, "Does God want me to marry this person?"

Whenever I'm in a relationship with someone I feel like I'm going in a circle where I think I'm going to marry them and I end up brokenhearted. The truth is that even if the road is similar there is something different every time. I'm not going in a circle. I'm growing. I'm moving forward. God is teaching me something. He is preparing me to notice the one that he wants me to marry. Yes, there are things that God wants to provide for me in marriage. But, those things boil down to a life together that compliments our ministries with each other. The needs on my list are much different than they were at age 12.


Quotes

John Calvin said that the only haven of safety is "to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever He leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God."

Surrender is not the same thing as passivity.

Jesus does not come to rearrange the outside of our life the way we want. He comes to rearrange the inside of our life the way God wants.

It is a Copernican revolution of the soul in which I take myself out of the center of the universe and place God there.

The only way to glory is through humility. The only way to freedom is through submission. The only way to victory is through surrender.