Surrender

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

-Jim Elliot

Lately, God has been teaching me to surrender. I'm not very good at surrendering. I want things done, and I want them done my way. I have dreams and plans and habits and relationships that, if threatened, I will cling to with all my might. That is not how God wants his children to live. 

"I will make with an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them... I will rejoice in doing them good." 

-God (quoted in Jeremiah 32:40-41)

And yet how quickly I forget that. How easy it is, when something good comes along, to latch onto it and refuse to let go. If I cling to a dream or a plan or a relationship that God is asking me to give up, though, I will waste my life. At the end of my life, I will look back and think, "I did not trust that God was who he said he was. I refused to sacrifice my plans for his glorious plan. I wasted my life." I do not want to waste my life. 

"Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee." 

-St. Augustine

When God asks me, or you, to give up something, it's not for our harm. Whatever God calls me to do is for my joy. God longs for us to find rest in him, and the only way to do that is to give up everything. Surrender is a scary thing, but in the end, it's the best thing. You can see that in the lives of people like Hudson Taylor, who started China Inland Mission, the very first missionary society to go to the interior of China. When his little girl lay dying, he wrote, 

"It was no vain nor unintelligent act when, knowing this land, its people and climate, I laid my wife and children, with myself, on the altar for this service. And He who we are and have been seeking to serve - though so unworthily, with much of weakness and failure, yet in simplicity and godly sincerity, and not without some measure of success - He has not left us now." 

You can see it in the lives of people like George Muller, who started an orphanage right in the middle of the Industrial Age in Great Britain. George Muller made no requests for money his entire life - he and his 2,000 orphans depended on God alone for provision. And did God ever provide! (You'll have to read his biography for yourself!) You would think that a man with that much responsibility and that little security would be in a state of perpetual worry. Think again. Here's a description of Muller from a farmer living near the orphanages. 

"Had I not known him, I should have said he was a gentleman of leisure and without a care, so quietly did he walk and so peaceful and stately was his demeanor! The twenty-third Psalm seemed written all over his face." 

And Muller himself said,

"Our [his and his wife's] happiness in God, and in each other, was indescribable. We had not some happy days every year, not a month of happiness every year; but we had twelve months of happiness in year, and thus year after year. Often and often did I say, "My darling, do you think there is a couple in Bristol, or in the world, happier than we are?" "

You see it in the lives of people like Jim Elliot who wrote the quote I started this post with  - "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." Jim Elliot and four other men were killed by a tribe in Ecuador they had hoped to share the gospel with. Later, Jim and other men's widows went back to the same tribe and succeeded in sharing the gospel. 

I want that peace and I want that joy in God more than I want my safety, my security, my dreams, my plans, my desires. As I was struggling (and am struggling!) with surrender, I stumbled across a hymn I had never heard before. It has quickly become one of my favorites. 

The Love of God

(Frederick Lehman)

The love of God is greater far, 

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

God gave His Son to win; 

His erring child He reconciled;

 And pardoned from his sin.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade.

To write the love of God above,

 Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole, 

Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

And it shall forevermore endure

The saints' and angels' song