Sweet Surrender

Matthew 11:28

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

One of Satan’s most brilliant lies is that if you surrender something to God, you’ll receive something less beautiful in return. If you come to God, he'll take your life away. If you empty your hands, God will place something less amazing in them. You’ll surrender gold and, in return, receive dirt.

This is the lie of chasing your dream: That when you let go of your plans and trust God’s, he will call you into a mission that you will hate. This is the lie of holding on to hurts. That when you let go of your wounds, they’ll be reopened, not healed and redeemed.

Adam and Eve believed this lie when they traded Eden for an apple. Letting go of the things we think are wonderful will force us to receive the mundane, the boring, the safe, from a God who always trades down with us, never up.

The rich young ruler who was afraid to give up his riches believed this when he walked away from Christ disappointed. He had too much good to trade in for so much average from Christ. But it’s a lie.

What father would give us a snake when we asked for a fish?

What father would throw a party when punishment was due?

What father would leave the flock to find the single lost sheep?

When you start to grasp this, a second lie will come and it will tell you, “I shouldn’t come to God just because I’m expecting good things from him.”

He’s no sky ATM, I agree. But the danger of this lie is that it quickly morphs into a joyless experience with God. Did the woman at the well say, “No thank you. I don’t want this living water you speak of. I don’t want to come to you just because I’m expecting good things”? Did the cripple who danced away healed say, “Leave me lame. I don’t want to come to you just because I’m expecting good things”?

No. They came with open hands and expectant hearts. They knew that the gift of his presence, the gift of his grace, would ultimately overwhelm anything and everything they let go of.

Surrender is not a commonly used word, in part because we think it means letting go of something amazing in exchange for something average. But we’re wrong. It’s a lie.

Surrender is not the end of a beautiful life. It is just the beginning.