Surrender and Suffering with Thanksgiving

At the beginning of the year I chose the word "surrender" as one to meditate upon and lift up to the Good Lord. I have often found myself with a repentant heart but one that is not surrendered. In other words, in important areas such as my lust, envy, jealousy and self righteousness I would stumble and repent and yet find myself stumbling in the same areas again. Of course, this is a normal part of human nature and a huge reason why I am so thankful for the One who bent heaven down to earth to rescue me. I have found that surrender is not just passively placing myself into a position where I accept the buffeting of the world around me, but actively choosing to buffet the world around me and then joyfully, with thanksgiving, accepting the consequences of my actions. We get to make our decisions in any given situations but the world gets to choose the consequences. I want to have the desire to give up my life fully to the power of my Father in heaven in both action and consequence. 

What are the ramifications of such a radical attitude? Well, in my more honest moments with myself, it is the understanding that, to the greatest degree, my actual life is an instrument to surrender into the hands of He who is most able to wield it well in the most impossible situations. We can consider the situation of those hiding Jews from the Nazis. "Tell us where the Jews your neighbors are hiding are or your family will be sent to the death camps!" Without faith in a GOOD and POWERFUL God, this situation has an easy solution. Surrender to the will of the Nazis. But God desires that we surrender our will to Him and protect the lives of the innocent. So the active expression of my work that is meant to buffet the world around me in such an instance would be to deny the Nazis their desire and trust that the life of my family while in God's hands is in a safer position than my surrender to evil could ever get them. My action would have a very clear repercussion but, with an eternal mindset, my attitude in the glory I give to God would be that of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3, It was demanded of them to bow down and worship the golden idol of King Nebuchadnezzar. If they did not, they would be thrown into a fiery furnace. Their response?

"O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."

These men made their choice and their action was to bow only to the One True God. They accepted the potential consequences even to the point of their deaths and, thankfully, in this instance God preserved their lives. That's the attitude God, in His grace, wants to develop in all of His children. We are to fully place our safety into His hands and, when it comes to bearing our cross, we actively choose to strike a blow against evil when it is our time even to our own worldly detriment.

One of my favorite scriptures I relate to surrender comes from 1 Peter 3:13-17:

"Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be trouble, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is it better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil."

For what price will you sell out?

Everyone has a price. Every last one. We have sold out our honor and integrity in the moment to something seemingly more important. "Our word is our bond" we say, but even the strongest of us break it easily for something. That something for me has predominantly been my lust (amongst many other things). I have historically broken appointments, ignored the needs of my friends and forsaken God in order to sate it. Inevitably, I find that when I do so, my life is like a trash bag with a hole in the bottom. It's not even worthy of the stinking filth it's supposed to hold. I am worthy only to be thrown away. More so, I'm deserving of judgment and in need of forgiveness by the ones I have neglected.


In no way can I call myself better than any man and, often caught red-handed, my defensive walls go up, accusations against the other begins, and I try to defend my "phantom honor." Much like a painting that has been taken off a wall after years in one place, there is the shade of something that should be there but I cannot grasp what was lost. Foolishly, I try to point out that it did, in fact, at one time, actually exist. Pathetic! I humble myself here so that no one can call me self-righteous when I tell this story:

While working at my job, a student approached me asking for two dollars: One for himself and the other for his friend. I pulled out two, crisp Washingtons for him on the condition that he repay me. He agreed. We had an unwritten contract sealed by his word. A week passed and I asked him for my money back. He balked and suggested that it was only two dollars and was not a big deal. In a sense this was true. I didn't need the money and he knew it. Still, in response, I said:

"Money is not the issue here. The issue is your word and right now you're telling me that you're willing to sell out your word for something as minor as two dollars. If you are bought off so lowly, how can I or anyone else ever trust you for anything?"

The next time we talked, I brought this up and said that I would never speak of it again. I also let him know again that there could be no trust on my part for him. He payed me back a few months later. In any case, we are all deal breakers who thirst for honor that does not exist in ourselves or anyone else we know. Our desire for such an impossible standard is evidence to me that it does exist. Thus, what astonished me today was the realization that Jesus had no price EVEN THOUGH the exchange placed before Him was His life in return for a torn trash bag: Of infinitely less value than two dollars yet somehow greatly prized.

I write this to give us all hope. There is goodness and great love from God just for us. Though we cannot find it in ourselves or others we can find it in Jesus and it is so good. Rest in Jesus and stop trying to work hard to be good. Learn His grace more than your failings. If you can't forgive yourself for the past, ask Him to lift that burden from your shoulders. He already finished those works when He died and rose again for us.

Carrie Prejean in review.

I know this blog comes a little bit after the entire Miss USA fiasco about her gay marriage question but I found a really good interview by Miles McPherson of her done in front of The Rock church congregation here in San Diego. She attends the church and speaks very lovingly of homosexuals as though there sin is no worse than different sins of any other person. What is important to her is not that homosexuality is a sin, but rather taking a stand for the righteousness of God that can cleanse us of all our sin. Here is the interview:

http://www.therocksandiego.org/stories/misscalifornia/