If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9 (KJV)
Confess and
surrender. You say that like it’s easy?
I've been working on surrender lately, and it’s a work in progress, through I’m
trying.
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I've got confession,
but surrender? We type A personalities get capacity confused with not needing
to surrender everything...and that’s when the wheels come off. Here’s a
confession (see, those are easy). I cannot tell the number of times I've told
the Lord in prayer (or at least thought)..."I've got this, Lord, but there
are other areas where I need you..." Was I serious?? Yes, I was. How many
times have you heard, thought, or said, “God helps those who help themselves.”
Where’d we get that stupid idea?
We didn’t get it from
scripture. Wikipedia
makes clear that “the phrase originated in ancient Greece…is often
mistaken for a Bible quote, but it appears nowhere in the Bible.”
Initiative is not a willful or godless notion, but for those professing faith,
a seriously confusing distraction. We’ve simply got to surrender. Simply?
I read recently that acknowledging
Christ is the act of surrender. I don’t think so. There’s more. Pete Miller,
writing in How To Surrender To God
explains it like this “to surrender means the end of the fight, and there is no
more argument. It is the solid realization that His way is a better way.” Solid
realization; I like that. My humanity can relate to that, and that’s the
problem, my humanity. We humans routinely struggle with admitting our
powerlessness. It gets in the way of our
profession of faith, because if we can do it on our own, we should, right?
Surrender. The solid
realization that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Surrender.
Admitting that while okay is, well, okay, good is better. Good is more
desirable that okay. Surrender. Knowing that just letting go means now you can
just hold on. Hold to His Hand, unchanging. Undeniable evidence that God is
good.
