sweet surrender

The other day a dear friend said something to me that just won't leave me alone. It keeps reverberating off the walls of my heart and echoing through the halls of my mind. You see, I've been wrestling with surrender.

I can already hear those of you who will tell me that wrestling with surrender is counterproductive. I get that surrender is about releasing. Letting go. Relinquishing. That's exactly why I'm wrestling with it.

I need to get this right.

Anyway.

Ked's words seemed to get right to the core of the surrender issue for me. In all honesty, I'm simply not there yet to wholeheartedly tell God, "You pick!"

But I'm gonna keep wrestling with surrender until I can.

How about you?

something better

When I let go, I closed my eyes tightly---only me and Him.

I held out my clenched fist, slowly opened it, and let it all just slip through my fingers.

I looked at Him and my heart sighed in simple repentance:

I've clung to my sin more than Your grace.

Exposed and uncomfortable, I looked away.

Ever so gently and gentlemanly, I felt His hand slip into mine.

He didn't leave me empty-handed. He just gave me something better to hold on to.

letting go

Sometimes it's easier to feel guilty than forgiven. All-too-often I choose to cling to my mistakes, my shortcomings, my depravity rather than to embrace the forgiveness and freedom that God has for me.

It takes effort to make that exchange, and---honestly?---sometimes I'd just rather not put in the effort. How pathetic is that? Especially since He already did the hard part.

But God's power has no effect in my life if I don't choose to receive it and rely on it. I don't want to nullify His power with my apathy.

I recently spent time letting go of some things I've held against myself for way too long. As hard as forgiveness can be, I find it most difficult to forgive myself.

Sitting alone in a "service" at St. Arbucks Church, I made the choice to let go. To forgive me.

After all, He already did.

And what I hold against myself, I'm ultimately holding against God. I'm basically slapping Him in the face and telling Him that His redemptive work isn't good enough. That I can do a better job atoning for my sin than He can.

Pride can't often see herself in the mirror. But I saw her loud and clear.

So I acknowledged that His work was final---that my sins are not only forgiven but paid for. And I made the decision to step out of the prison I'd locked myself in for so long.

I left a lot of crap in Starbucks that night.

And I got a venti cup of forgiveness to go.

[from a post on this day last year]

lord, i'm sorry

Lord, I'm sorry for thinking You love me the same way others do. For assuming You'll withhold affection until I've paid penance or until You're "over it".

For imagining that You hold me at arm's length most of the time and invite me in only when You want to want me.

For thinking You see me through eyes of disappointment, seeing only how far I am from all I could be and should be.

For presuming You only love me because You have to and not because You want to.

For guessing You hold my mistakes against me, just as I do with myself.

For acting as though You think I'm discardable and unwantable.

For forgetting that You love me for who I am and not for who I can be.

Lord, I want to believe.

this day last year: bare-handed

The story of creation is an incredible one. For so many reasons. But mostly because it shows me so beautifully the unmatched worth we have in God's eyes. God spoke everything into existence, which is a whole mind-blowing thing right there. "Let there be..." and there was. That is just incredible in a way I can't fully comprehend.

There God was, balancing between time and eternity, forming galaxies, hippos, mountains, and clown fish with His words. But when He created mankind, He used His bare hands. He stooped down to make us great. Words would not suffice.

He wanted us to bear His thumbprint.

"The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..."

He loved us enough to form us with His own hands. He wanted to hold us, rhythmically massage our hearts to kickstart their first beats, and be the first thing we saw when we opened our eyes. I imagine that our first case of goosebumps came from Him caressing our skin.

And then He breathed into us. Face to face, we inhaled our first breath as He exhaled into our nostrils. I cannot even fathom the worth, the wealth, of that breath of life.

God still wants to get down and dirty with me. When my life is a mess or it feels like I'm wallowing in the mire of my emotions and circumstances, it's easy to think God is far-removed from it all. But He's right here in the dirt next to me. It's nothing new to Him. He's been there, done that.

And more than willing to do it again.

[from an entry originally posted this day last year]