The six truths + radical surrender

by | May 25, 2021 | faith, grief, hope, prayer

A woman with dark hair and a red and black plaid shirt holds her arms forward in surrender.

This prayer, prayed in full surrender, will change your life. Maybe not overnight. But you can trust it will steady and stay your heart and help you to release whatever future space you are holding onto.

Photo by Gabriel Benois 

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:17


It’s okay to grieve what you lost

Sometimes I find myself feeling anxious about how things will work out. I jump forward to the future when I need only be present. There’s so much I want to do in this life and I get frustrated with my limitations and forget about God’s miracle space — that in his arms I find sufficiency and purpose and this is the very best place to be, here and now, with him.
 
My story began a long time ago during the brokenness of my divorce, but that was simply the beginning of the trials and heartache — the opening act to years of struggles and hardships that have taken me on a rugged backroads journey through pain and loss. Even in the hardships, there is beauty.
 
How do we hold the loss and make space to grieve while moving forward (into the unknown)? Somehow it feels more foreboding after loss, yet God has good gifts for me. He is a good and a kind and a faithful God.
 
If you’re out there, too, feeling weary in waiting, I want you to know you’re not alone in your suffering. It may feel like God has forgotten you — but know that he sometimes pulls back from us to teach us and to test our hearts. He promises in his word that he will never leave us or forsake us; even when we let go of him, he keeps holding onto us. We are his — bought with the price of the blood of his precious son.
 
There are things in this life I expected to be able to do and to accomplish and still hope for with the deepest kind of hope — a certain knowing.
 
I believe, God, that you can heal me, but even if you don’t, you are sovereign and I trust you. My spirit is willing to go wherever he leads and my flesh, my mind, and my desires still want to override that spirit surrender. All too often, my will jumps ahead or proceeds in its own direction. Like a young child, I wrestle it out with God: God, I just want to do it my way. But I was crucified with Christ and bought for a price:  my body is not my own. I am his instrument.
 

This entire life is reaching higher in the spirit so we can release all things of the world, and the world as we know it is passing away. These things that we cherish are so.. temporary.

Radical surrender

 

I want to share a simple prayer that has helped me time and time again when I want to jump ahead to the future and analyze every prospective outcome: 

God, please move my will into your will and my heart into your heart.

 
It is a bold and peace-filled prayer for those who pray it. God, move my will for this situation into your heart. Give me supernatural perception, wisdom or understanding about this move/decision/job/relationship. With this prayer, we take ourselves out of the future space, which is God’s, and we ground ourselves in the present moment, free from anxiety or worry over anything in the future.
 
This prayer, prayed in full surrender, will change your life. Maybe not overnight. But you can trust it will steady and stay your heart and help you to release whatever future space you are holding onto. The future is like the wind. It’s unseen and we know it’s there, but we cannot touch it. We can only feel it when it sweeps over us.
 
In times of uncertainty, grief and struggling, we must learn to be present and ground ourselves in the truth of God’s word. Here are six truths you can lean on when you’re struggling and weary:
 

1. I am sufficient in Christ. I am God’s masterpiece. (Eph. 2:10)

2. There is beauty in hardship. The trials that test me refine my faith. (1 Pet. 1:6-7)

3. God has good things in store for me. In all things, God works for my good, because I love him. (Rom. 8:28)

4. Sometimes, God pulls back or is quieter to test our hearts — but he never leaves us. If God is quiet, I trust that he is still near. (2 Chron. 32:31)

5. We are his — bought for a price. My body is not my own, but a temple to the Holy Spirit. God bought me for the price of his son Jesus so he could dwell within me. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

6. Hope is faith in what is not seen. I can know with certainty that my salvation is secure and that, with God, the impossible is possible. (Heb. 11:1)

 
 
Dear God,
So often, we cling to the reins of control and want to know every detail of our futures, when only you know the future and you hold the future in your hands. Help us to release the future to you in peace and trust that you are with us even when the future is uncertain. Help us to remember that even when you are quiet, we are known and precious to you. Help us to look towards the future with radical hope in your goodness and help us to move our hearts into your hearts and our wills into alignment with your Perfect Will for our lives.
In Jesus name,
Amen

 

Verses for study:

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
 
1 Peter 1:6-7
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
 
Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
 
2 Chronicles 32:31

And so in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon, who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.