Surrender

It's 10:20 as I write this and normally by this time, I am snug alseep under the covers- 6 am gets here way too quick! Perhaps it's just one of those nights where I can't sleep or perhaps it's because the speaker at church told us that he was going to pray that if we have stuff to deal with, that we wouldn't sleep tonight. I haven't figured out if it's the latter or the former...

Sunday he spoke of commitment vs. surrender. To be honest, I never would have thought to juxtapose the two, but it makes sense. I can commit myself to God, but so what? If that's all I did, the excuses could abound- I'm not behaving because I haven't heard the Lord speak to me.....but I am committed to Him. Or, I am committed to Him as long as everything goes my way...

One of the definitions of commitment is: an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action. A commitment can almost hogtie your hands- where is the freedom of that? Should we be in bondage with the Lord? Absolutely not.

But surrender on the other hand is a whole other story. Surrender is abandonment of self in humility to the Lord. There is a freedom in letting go of that bondage. Surrender is wreckless abandonment. It's a relinquishment of all that we cling to. It's freedom...as strange as that sounds, it's freedom. Surrendering to God is not a restriction of freedom, but the unleashing of freedom to be who God has created us to be. It all seems so complex and contradictory- and maybe it is, but it makes complete sense...

Maybe I do have stuff to work on.

In His Mercy.