Giving Up the Fight
Ever think about surrender? Does even the mention of that word make you feel uneasy- the way it once did for me? Or is it just a word you hear in the songs you sing at church?
What is surrender?
My dad put it well one day: surrender means that you “come out with your hands up.” In other words, you give up the fight.
At the age of 15, I gave up the fight, and surrendered my life to the rulership of Jesus Christ. I now thought different, talked different, dressed different, and lived different. He had set me free from the selfish, self-absorbed girl I had once been, replacing my stony heart with a heart of flesh. Where once I had hated being different from the world, I now embraced the call to be holy and set-apart for my God.
But there comes a cost with unconditional surrender to a Holy God. Friends would despise and forsake me. I would be hated by the world, and sometimes be unpopular with other “Christians.” It would mean I’d spend some lonely nights and have some uneventful weekends. I couldn’t be like everyone else, dress like everyone else, talk like everyone else. I couldn’t live for the eyes of man anymore, couldn’t make my own plans anymore, couldn’t live MY own life anymore. I had become nothing, so He could become everything.
Surrender meant I would be different from that point on. I belonged to Someone, and He was jealous over me and my life.
So many come close to surrender but can never quite “give up” their fight, because of this: being a Christian would mean being different, and being different is weird, and being weird won’t make me happy or let me have any fun. And so they miss out.
While it’s true that I don’t have the “fun” so many claim to be having, I want to share right now, with tears in my eyes, that living for Jesus Christ TRUMPS any thing this life has to offer. Anyone who says surrender is too hard, too boring, too costly… has never known surrender the way He intended. For in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand, there are pleasures forevermore! (Psalm 16:11)
He is worth any price you pay. YOU were worth the price He paid. And believe me, He gave up a lot more than you ever could. For Jesus left His home in Heaven, His comforts, His glory, and His Father- to come to a world that rejected, mocked, hated, and killed Him. For you.