By Laura McDowell
“Surrender”. As I sat observing a group for those recovering from substance use addiction, one individual used that word when it came his time to share. He said that God was working in his life and that he was learning to “surrender”. I’m not sure why, but for some reason that one word stuck out to me above all the others. I think maybe it’s because God has been trying to teach me the same lesson too. And boy has it been uncomfortable.
If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you’re probably familiar with Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Many of us may have heard this verse so many times that we kind of just glaze over the words now, but let’s look at the full implications of what this verse is saying, particularly the line, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” I have been crucified…I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
Let me throw out another verse that you’re probably familiar with, 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.” You are not your own; you were bought at a price. What do these two verses mean? This is the part that gets really uncomfortable.
I love reading old Christian books that were written by men and women from the past who were giants of the faith. People like C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas a Kempis, Corrie Ten Boom, Dr. Helen Roseveare, Amy Carmichael, and my personal favorite, Elisabeth Elliott. What did all these people have in common? They all truly understood the words, “surrender” , “sacrifice”, and "acceptance" when it came to our relationship with Christ and what he calls us to.
What started me on this whole journey of being challenged with real surrender and sacrifice was when I was feeling discontent with my current job and what I was currently doing. I felt that God wanted me to do more, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was frustrating. And then God directed me to a book, “Living Sacrifice: Willing to be Whittled as an Arrow” by Dr. Helen Roseveare. I had never heard of her before. She was a missionary who served in the Congo from 1953 to 1973. And her book gave me a whole new fresh way of viewing those two verses I quoted earlier. Here’s a quote from her book:
“To be a living sacrifice will involve all my time. God wants me to live every minute for Him in accordance with his will and purpose, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty-four hours of every day, being available to Him. No time can be considered as my own, or as ‘off-duty’ or ‘free.’ I cannot barter with God about how much time I can give to serve Him. Whatever I am doing, be it a routine salaried job, or housework at home, be it holiday time and free, or after-work Christian youth activities, all should be undertaken for Him, to reveal His indwelling presence to those around me. The example of my life must be as telling as my preaching if He is to be honored.”
You see, if we are in Christ, then we are co-heirs with him (Romans 8:17), but we are also his servants. Paul and Timothy referred to themselves as servants and bond-servants of Christ several times in the Scriptures. And when you are a servant, you are at the Master’s beck and call. Hence, we are living sacrifices. Hence, we have been crucified with Christ, and we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. We are not our own. We were bought with a price.
But along with being a living sacrifice and fully surrendering our wills to the will of God comes acceptance. But acceptance can’t just end there; it must be joyful acceptance, not a bitter or begrudging acceptance. One of my favorite books is “Hinds Feet on High Places” by Hannah Hurnard. She describes joyful acceptance to the will of God this way:
“The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our own will and acceptance of his as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us. Every acceptance of his will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to his will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places to which he desires to bring every child of his while they are still living on earth.”
The name of the main character in the book is Much Afraid. And as she travels on trying to reach the High Places, she eventually must pass through a desert. While in the desert, and starting to despair, she comes upon a lone little flower that had managed to grow under an old pipe that was connected to an old water tank. The pipe had a small leak and occasionally a single drop of water would leak out and fall on the flower giving it just what it needed to survive in such a harsh environment. As Much Afraid approaches the flower, she notices how brave and hopeful the flower appeared to be when all around it there was nothing but barren wasteland. Much Afraid asks the little flower its name, to which it replied that its name was Acceptance-with-Joy.
“Much Afraid thought of the things which she had seen…somehow the answer of the little golden flower which grew all alone in the waste of the desert stole into her heart and echoed there faintly and sweetly, filling her with comfort. She said to herself, ‘He (the Shepherd) has brought me here when I did not want to come, for His own purpose. I, too, will look up into His face and say, ‘Behold me! I am your little handmaiden, Acceptance-with-Joy.’”
I don’t think that joyful acceptance means being ecstatic when seemingly terrible and tragic things happen to us. But there are three words that I do think it means: contentment, humility, and hope. Joyful acceptance means being content with God’s will when it may not necessarily be what we wanted. It means accepting God’s will with humility, understanding that we can’t see the whole picture, only He can, and that He just asks that we obey and trust Him in it. And it also means accepting God’s will with hope. Knowing that obedience and surrender to Him now will result in lasting joy in heaven.
So, what does being a living sacrifice and surrendering look like, practically speaking, on a daily basis? Is it just a one-time event? I wish it were that easy. Just to say, “Ok Lord, I’m all yours! Do whatever you want to with my life!” And then we can go on our merry way and never deal with our crucified selves ever rising up again. I think that is an important first step. But we can’t just end there. Because eventually our crucified selves will try to rise back up and we will again have to crucify them. I believe that it will be a task that must be performed every day until we die, and our bodies are finally glorified in heaven with Christ. But that’s what it means to be a living sacrifice. Daily sacrificing our own wills and desires on the altar of God’s will, surrendering fully to whatever he wants, and accepting it joyfully.
Allow me to end with one more quote from Dr. Helen Roseveare:
“To love the Lord my God with all my soul will involve a spiritual cost. I’ll have to give Him my heart, and let Him love through it whom and how He wills, even if this seems at times to break my heart. To love the Lord my God with all my soul will involve a volitional and emotional cost. I’ll have to give Him my will, my rights to decide and choose, and all my relationships, for Him to guide and control, even when I cannot understand His reasoning. To love the Lord my God with all my mind will involve an intellectual cost. I must give Him my mind, my intelligence, my reasoning powers, and trust Him to work through them, even when He may appear to act in contradiction to common sense. To love the Lord my God
with all my strength will involve a physical cost. I must give Him my body to indwell, and through which to speak, whether He chooses health or sickness, by strength or weakness, and trust Him utterly with the outcome.”
Surrender. Living Sacrifice. Joyful Acceptance. If the implication of what these words really mean makes you uncomfortable, it’s ok. They make me uncomfortable too. I don’t think Jesus ever intended the Christian life to be comfortable. In fact, he warned us it would not be. But he did promise us that it would be worth it. And it will be.
Comentarios