Hi how are you all today? I am well and just came back from a cruise last week. It was relaxing but I felt like a hibernating bear- eat and sleep although I did a few activities. How was your week?
This week I want to blog on surrender. When we think of surrender it is usually someone holding up a white flag indicating they were happy to lose. Another scenario is commonly played out in western movies and usually between good guys and bad guys. But what does surrender really mean?
The definition of surrender in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:
1. to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand – surrendered the fort
2. to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another
3. to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner
4. to give (oneself) over to something (such as an influence)
When we look at these meanings, there is an element of power, force or compulsion over it. It doesn’t seem to be a word that we would like in our own lives.
However, when we look at the meaning in the Bible, we see surrender in a different light. It has the same meaning- we need to give something up but it is not for our harm but for our good.
A good analogy is when we are trying to take an old bone off a dog. That dog doesn’t want to give up the old because it doesn’t realise there is a new. We want to take the old bone to give the dog a new bone which is much better.
However Jesus asks us to surrender, not to hurt us, but to provide something better. The only way we can get the better, is to surrender the old.
This principle is all through the Bible. Give your tithes and then blessing will flow. But when we are running short of money, the concept of tithing can be scary. Are we going to surrender our little or are we going to clutch it like the dog with the old bone.
Let’s look at this meaning from the Bible story of Ruth.
Ruth was a Moabite who were enemies of Gods people Israel. An Israelite family moved to Moab and she married one of their sons. After a while, the son died and her mother in law decided to go back to Israel.
Ruth went with her but a while into that journey, she came to her surrender moment. Her mother in law told her to go back to her own people and it would have been easy to do. After all she was leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar and was going to the enemy’s camp. But she saw something or heard something in this family’s stories about a loving God and she wanted more.
In Ruth 1: 16-17 in the Message Bible, Ruth responded:
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go,and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”
In that moment, Ruth surrendered to an unknown God and an unknown people. This is the same for us when we give our lives to Jesus. We surrender to Him and start serving an unknown God and we join an unknown family. But in that surrender comes a life we could never imagine serving a God Who loves us unconditionally and with a mercy and grace that is hard to understand but easy to surrender to.
So what happened to Ruth? She arrived in the land and found favour with a man named Boaz and worked in his field. God provided food and shelter for her and Naomi, her mother in law. Then much to her surprise, she married the landowner Boaz. But what she didn’t know and we do is that she is in the lineage of Jesus. God had an amazing plan for her in her surrender.
But what about us? God is no respecter of persons and if we will surrender to Him, He also has an amazing plan for us. All we have to do is believe and trust which sounds like faith and is faith.
So this week, what do you and I need to surrender. It is not a loss moment but a new beginning. So, let’s be brave and do it. I know we can.
Bless you and keep living the life God intended for you.
Karen
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