I really want to, but for some reason, complete surrender to God is tough for me. You?
Do you ever hold things back from God? Worry over things you know – you know – God can handle? That is where I am living in this season of life. I give things to God only to take them back again. All year the Lord has been saying, “Let go, give Me everything”.
Today I will share what I am learning in the hopes it helps me stay accountable and connect with you where you are in the journey.
What Does It Mean to Surrender to God?
That’s a fair question don’t you think? Over the 30+ years I’ve walked with God I have had different answers to what surrender to God looks like. Most of those answers only went skin deep.
Surrendering to God, I thought, meant:
- Going to church
- Reading your Bible
- Praying
- Avoiding sin
- Serving where you are needed
Now don’t get me wrong, those things are great, but they don’t necessarily mean you are surrendered to God. To better understand what surrender means to God we must look at Scripture about surrender.
What Does the Bible Say About Surrendering to God?
The top on my list of surrender to God Bible verses is Proverbs 3:5-6. This verse seems so simple, but in it lies the entire idea of surrender.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB
The Biblical idea of how to surrender to God is about trusting Him rather than ourselves. Trusting His ways, even when they seem crazy. Believing He will do what He says He will do even when it feels impossible.
Related Post: How To Keep Trusting God When It Looks Impossible
Surrender Defined
Merriam-Webster defines surrender as follows.
- To yield to the power of another
- Agreeing to give up battling another
- To give oneself up to the power or influence of another
Surrender is a verb, an action we choose. We choose to yield, agree, give up battling and give ourselves over to the influence of another.
Ouch. Maybe that’s why learning how to surrender to God is too challenging. I love to be right, to get my own way, to fight for myself. Can you relate?
Surrender Is Hard
The challenges I am facing this year are so big. So big. It is scary to face so many hard things at one time. I cycle between heartfelt prayers of surrender to God and spending hours on Google to find my own solution to the problems.
The big issues we are facing:
- Finances
- My husband has been looking for full-time work since before Covid
- Parenting
- My youngest daughter has Autism Spectrum Disorder and as she nears puberty there are real challenges
- Isolation has created loneliness and disconnectedness in my oldest daughter
- Homeschooling
- Homeschooling a middle school student is hard work
- Health
- Pain comes without warning and levels me
- Marriage
- Submission in marriage has been challenging (especially with so much more time together during 2020)
These are just a few of the tough things I am facing and I am struggling in this season to really know how to surrender to God and let go of the need to control everything. This has brought an intense season of prayer and fasting for guidance.
Related Post: 27 Fasting and Prayer Scriptures for Spiritual Breakthrough
God Allows Hard Things in Life
Part of the struggle is that God has allowed many hard things into my life. There have been seasons where I questioned if He was even watching as I drowned in trials.
Most of my life has been lived with financial insecurity. As a child, we lived in poverty, never sure how the next meal would come or if we would have a home. As an adult, I’ve been a bit of a workaholic trying to avoid that life. I struggle to trust God with our finances.
Abuse, neglect, and rape are a part of my childhood. God allowed those things to happen to me when I was helpless to stop them. As an adult, I struggle to trust God to take care of my children.
Surrender is hard when it is not daily. That is my prayer this year - to surrender to God, His will, His way, every day in a fresh way! Will you join me? Share on XWhy Does God Allow So Many Hard Things?
That is the question I used to ask, but there was never an answer. Yes, there are many surrender to God Scripture verses where you can see God allowed hard things to teach surrender or trust or faith. No, that is not always the case. So there isn’t a clear answer about the why.
Years after trials we can look back and sometimes see God’s hand weaving things together and have an answer to the why questions, but not always.
Over the years, God changed my “why” questions to “what” questions.
- What does God want to teach me through this trial?
- What am I holding onto that God wants me to let go of?
- How does God want to grow my faith through this trial?
- What can I learn about who God is through this trial?
Those are my new “what” questions and believe me they help keep me positive and thankful and humble in the process. Before, when I focused on “why,” I was discontent, bitter, and resentful of all the hard times. I highly recommend a shift to what if you are struggling with those things while trying to surrender to God.
Related Post: 35 Inspiring Bible Verses About Gratitude to Get You Through Hard Times
Is God Faithful?
The real issue I find, when struggling with how to trust in the Lord with all my heart is fear that God won’t be there to help me.
- God didn’t keep us from poverty.
- He didn’t prevent rape and abuse and neglect.
- God didn’t help my dad keep a job.
- God allowed us to lose everything many times so much so that there are not untainted childhood memories.
So I have trust issues about finances and safety and so many other things.
But I also have faith that God is who He says He is. The Bible is true and the Bible says God is faithful and trustworthy. I want to believe that. My mind believes it, but sometimes my heart wavers. Can you relate?
How Do I Surrender to God?
Let’s just apply the definition of surrender to our passage so we know what it looks like to surrender to God.
Surrendering to God is applying Proverbs 3:5-6.
- Trust HIM as He moves by yielding to His will.
- Lean on HIM for strength when the fear comes by agreeing to give up fighting.
- Remember how HE has been faithful in the past and giving up anxiety over what-ifs.
- Praise HIM even when it feels hard by giving up our right to be the hero!
Trust in The Lord
Trusting in the Lord with all your heart. Yielding to His will. Remember that a grain of mustard can move a mountain, so trust Him with what you have and know He will grow it!
Trusting God is about giving it to Him and leaving it there. That prayer of surrender to God may need to be prayed hourly for a while to make it stick. You can trust Him!
Lean On HIM
When it gets hard to trust Him, you can lean on His strength. To lean on HIM for strength requires you to agree to give up fighting Him.
He says, “lean not on your own understanding” which means part of this is trusting what seems illogical. That is where I get tripped up in all this surrender business. I want life to be logical, but God doesn’t work that way.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 NASB
So when God says follow this path or wait on this timing and it makes zero sense, surrendering to Him is doing it anyway.
Remember His Faithfulness
Earlier I was musing about the concern that God is not faithful, and if I only look at the trials and hardships that are hard. However, if I look at all the other times where God stepped into my struggles and rescued me it is not so hard.
God is faithful. He has rescued me so many times I don’t know why I doubt. No, He doesn’t rescue me every time and yes, I live with the consequences of my foolish choices to this day, but that does not change who God is.
- God sought me out when I was lost and showed me real love for the first time
- He brought friends when I was lonely.
- God provided for us when neither of us was working.
- He sheltered me from addiction.
- God blessed us with children when we were hopeless.
Remembering times when God has been faithful in the past helps me better trust in Him and His odd ways when I want to just fix it myself. When I remember, I can more easily give up anxiety over the what-ifs.
Praise Him
Are you a person who loves to praise the Lord? Do you sing loudly when that song comes on that touches your heart?
When life is going well, praising Him is easy, but when things are tough I have to reach deep into my heart and praise Him anyway. No, I am not praising Him because of the trials. It is something else.
- I praise Him because I believe He will work things out.
- I praise Him because who He is is still amazing
Praise is about worshiping the God who is, not the God who does if that makes sense. I don’t give Him my praise because He rescues me in the way I prayed, but because He is worthy of praise.
Whether my life goes well or not, God is amazing and I will praise Him. By choosing to Praise HIM even when it feels hard I give up the right to be the hero and submit to Him as the hero of my story!
A benefit of praising God in the storm is that it’s tough to worry when you are praising God… just sayin’!
What Happens When We Surrender to God?
When we choose to surrender to the Lord, even in the midst of rising fear and doubt, there are amazing benefits.
Just to be clear here, surrendering to God doesn’t mean things will be perfect. God doesn’t always work all things out the way we hope. He doesn’t fix all the problems and gives us a comfortable life. No, that’s not God’s way.
What happens when we surrender is that God steps into the midst of our trials in a fresh way and breaths new life into us.
Related Post: Can You Trust the Will of God Like Jesus?
Benefits of Surrendering to God
The benefits of surrendering to God are many. This is in no way an exhaustive list.
- Your faith grows.
- You get to see God in a fresh way.
- People around you see God.
- Salvation’s message spreads.
- Fear flees.
- Peace floods your soul.
- Others are encouraged.
- Discontentment, discouragement, and doubt disappear.
Look at any surrender to God Bible verse and you will see these things over and over. The people didn’t get a happily ever after, but they were filled with the joy of the Lord and it showed!
Yes God is Faithful
As an adult, I clearly see how my parents made unwise choices and shunned God’s help over and over. God never forces us to live in His will or accept His help, never…
My childhood was not God’s fault.
And the situations I face as an adult… Well if I’m honest, most of them are a consequence of some really foolish choices I made earlier in life.
God allows us to live in the consequences – even though He forgives us and helps us, and never leaves us.
None of that takes away from the faithfulness of God.
When we choose to surrender, we get to see God’s faithfulness in ways we would miss otherwise.
So Why Worry?
Why do I worry? I know God is faithful. I am praising Him and trusting Him one moment, then in the next, I am not.
I worry. Flat out. When I see things starting in a certain pattern I begin to feel overwhelming anxiety.
My mind races with all the things:
- What if…
- Remember when that…
- In the past this…
Why do I worry? Because I am human and I fall short. Can you relate?
I KNOW God is faithful. I believe that with every fiber of my being!!!!!!
But sometimes I need HIM to remind me.
Sweet Reminders
This week, the kids began remembering a rough time for our family. A time dad was home and playing with them a lot.
I remember that time as stress and heartache as we were sure we would lose everything.
The kids remember God paying the bills and dad getting to take them on hikes!
At that moment, I saw the pride and fear and rebellion in my own heart in the midst of their remembering. As we face uncertainty – again – God reminded me to embrace surrender.
Surrender to God Prayer
Father God, Creator of the Universe,
Forgive me. I have not surrendered to You all the hard things in this season. I have been trusting in my own understanding and failing miserably. Forgive me for worrying about things I can’t change. Forgive me for turning to friends and Google instead of turning to You.
Things are hard. Finances are tough and work is scarce and we need you to provide. Parenting is challenging and I feel so unprepared for the next season. Pain is scary and hard and I don’t understand.
Please, Lord, help me truly trust You with all my heart, and when my heart doubts, help me to praise You and trust again. Teach me how to surrender to God every single day. Remind me of Your faithfulness when I begin to waver.
I will give You all the praise, honor, and glory through this.
Amen.
Why We Must Surrender To God
Surrendering to God is hard. Flat out, hard. We see the world turn to everything under the sun for comfort and security and we can easily be sucked into that mindset.
It feels safer to Google our issues and follows the advice we find there. I get that. If you searched my browser history you’d find queries about autism and supplements and full-time jobs and being a submissive wife.
Don’t get me wrong, there is wisdom in learning and doing our part, but that shouldn’t be our first stop.
Our first stop should be in prayer. Our first step should be to open the Bible, search for Surrender to God Bible Verses. Among them, you will find Proverbs 3:5-6 which seems to be my verse this year.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB
The reason why we must surrender to God is that He is the ONE who can really help us through when life is hard.
Do you need to surrender something back to God – again?
He is waiting, without judgment, with open arms for you to enter into that fresh surrender with HIM in love and grace. You can learn how to surrender to God as a daily act of worship.
The daily part is what is missing in my life. Surrender is hard when it is not daily. That is my prayer this year. To surrender to Him, His will, His way, every day in a fresh way!
Will you join me?
Submission in Marriage
For me, all of this ties back to submitting to my husband in some really tough areas.
If you are a wife and want to go deeper into this and see how to submit to your husband when you disagree – come join us in the Wives Only FB group for a live video training series.
in HIS love,
Tiffany of Hope Joy in Christ inspires Christian Women to grow in faith, live out Biblical Marriage Principles and raise Godly Children. Join the Wives Only Facebook Group here or keep up with her through Pinterest.
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