September 13: After Surrender - What?

Believe Chambers when he says that "the great crisis is the surrender of the will." Praise the Lord, he is equally correct when he says that once "the man yields up his will to Him, that battle never needs to be refought." You see, the battle to give up your rights to God is so intense and so bloody that it makes the fights in the Rocky movies look like toddlers tousling in the sand. The good news is that the habit of surrender gets much easier after that first all-out war.

So where are you in this process? Are you thinking that giving Him your heart is enough and that you aren't sure you want to give Him the rest of you? Or are you like I was when I first read this -- plain ole hopping mad!!!

If Hollywood had made a movie of that war, the first battle scene would have been of me strapping on the armour of my own self-worth and drawing the sword of self-pity as I warily circled the presence of the Lord. Radiating anger and distrust, the camera would have zoomed into a close-up shot of my face, with eyes bulging and blood vessels popping, as I screamed:

"Give up ALL my rights?!?! That's insane!! Of course, I have the right to be treated fairly, to resist someone who was wrong, to have good health, to protect my family and my job, to shield myself from sorrow. To surrender all of that would be sheer lunacy.... I would be totally vulnerable and only an idiot would strip themselves naked of all defenses, close their eyes and wait while the evil world devoured them......."

And that's just scene I!!! I think you get the picture!

Oh Jesus, I wish that I could somehow make this process of self-surrender easier for these children of my heart. Yet I know that if You, the Creator of the universe, will not "crush a man's will into surrender" and if You will "never beseech him," then I must follow Your example and wait while they make that decision with their own free will. Having fought that battle and lost to Your will, I can now easily see how much more freedom I possess since I surrendered to You. I want to climb the rooftops and shout to the world, "It's okay to let it all go!! Our God is so very worthy of your trust!!" Strengthen them for this battle, for when they have fought it and You have won, they will be an amazing force in this world!!