Sunday, November 9, 2008

Surrender

I've been having trouble surrendering some things lately and I finally figured out what I've been doing wrong. Every time I'm led to surrender something, I ask God to take it out of my hands or to help me let go of it. The problem is that I usually end up taking back whatever it is that I've said I would give up. This is because I'm depending on myself to give up something and I'm not letting God take control of it, even though I've been asking Him to do that.

I realized the other day that I'm called to be obedient when God asks me to give something up. I shouldn't be questioning Him, taking it back, or thinking that something better will happen once I've truly surrendered it. I only need to be obedient and trust Him. This is such a simple concept and I don't know why it took me so long to understand it. I'm constantly striving to listen to God's voice in my life, but that has usually meant that I wanted to listen to Him telling me what to do. I don't think I realized how important it is to obey when He tells me to get rid of certain thoughts and actions as well. I've felt some more peace over the past couple of days because of realizing this. When I've wanted to start taking something back into my own hands, I've been able to remind myself that God has asked me to give this up and I need to follow through on being obedient to Him. That's what I want to be better at now.

3 comments:

incurable optimist said...

Jenna! I miss you!
By the way, I totally connect with this post.
-Betsy

Jenna said...

Betsy, I miss you, too! I'm following your blog now, though, so I can stay updated on everything... when do we get to see you again? I know that Paul's super excited to see you next week! :)

incurable optimist said...

It all depends on how long I visit him for Christmas. If I decide to stay for my birthday, I'll see you guys at the beginning of January, which would be awesome. But that would mean missing my birthday with my family, and I'm not sure I'm grown-up enough to do that...