Surrender
At Spirit & Truth, we long for people to become more empowered by the Spirit, rooted in the truth, and mobilized for the mission. In many ways, we teach this by living it. On Spirit & Truth Weekends, we practice listening to the Holy Spirit, dive into the Scriptures, and go out into the community to offer prayer. I love the ministry that we do. I love walking these things out in my own life AND watching others have the revelation that they can hear God’s voice and that they can talk to others about Jesus. But can I be honest about something? There are still times when I ignore the Spirit’s nudge, forget the truth, and would rather remain in my comfort zone. I try to completely surrender my life, but I would be lying if I said I do it perfectly.
One day I was praying about this and God led me to the passage of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I find myself in this passage often with the Father. Yet as I read it this time, He revealed to me the honesty of Jesus. Jesus’ obedience was not rid of honesty. He asked for the cup to be taken from Him if possible. That was an honest desire. Nevertheless, He surrendered His will to the Father.
The more God reveals the depth of Jesus’ sacrifice to me, the more I desire to return my will to Him. This scripture reminded me that it is possible for my honesty and my obedience to coexist. Sometimes I get stuck at the point of honesty and never move to obedience. This sounds something like this, “God I don’t want to __________, so I’m not going to.” The problem with this is that my will and preference are the determining factors. The good news is that Jesus modeled perfect, extravagant obedience. He submitted his honesty to the will of the Father. I pray that my life would look less like one that follows my own desire and is obedient only when it’s convenient, and more like one that is honest about the hesitancy (whatever that may be), yet willing to say, “Not as I will, but as you will.”
May we all long to live more empowered by the Holy Spirit, rooted in the truth, and mobilized for the mission. May we all surrender more of ourselves to Him, that His will would be done.