Hi, this is Erin Michele. Welcome to steps to trusting it is my goal here to meet you where you are in your faith journey, and to encourage you to continue to take steps, to trusting the Lord more fully. 

[00:00:18] Hi everyone. And welcome to the show.

[00:00:22]Today. We are going to be talking about surrender. Last time on the show. I was here with Bethany Kimsey and that was a big topic of our conversation when we were talking about parenting. Today. I wanted to look deeper into the topic of surrender. I thought it would be helpful to start off with the definition.

[00:00:38] Lexico.com to find surrender like this, ” stop resisting to the enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.”

[00:00:48]A couple of years back, I looked at surrender a lot. I actually, each year I pick a word of the year kind of as a focus of what I see God doing in my heart that I want to continue to focus on learn about and to continue to seek God about. And for me,  2019 was the year that I chose the word surrender as my word of the year.  Surrender is talking about an enemy  it’s talking about often it’s a war term, right? In war time, they would surrender to an enemy. They would stop fighting. They would go over to the opponent and submit to their authority. They would,  put themselves under the authority that they were surrendering to.

[00:01:32] This struck me in a lot of ways. As I was deciding that I wanted to surrender to the Lord Jesus, more and more  things that felt hard to give to him things that I wanted to hold tight to myself.  I started seeking out, well, why would I want to surrender? Why would I want to, give over to this authority?

[00:01:53]And you know what?  My word of the year remained surrender.  But I actually ended up meditating on how the Lord is our defender over and over and over the Lord defends us.

[00:02:06]  As I was in this time of really seeking out the Lord as my defender. I found myself so much in the Psalms looking at how God defends us. And I want to share some of those verses with you.

[00:02:22] The first is in Psalm 18 starting in verse one. ” I love you. O Lord, my strength. The Lord, my rock is my fortress and my deliver. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise. And I am saved from my enemies.”

[00:02:45]  Then jumping down to verse six.

[00:02:48] “In my distress I called to the Lord. , I cried to my God for help. And from his temple, he heard my voice, my cry came before him into his years.”

[00:03:00] It is in weakness that we most see our need for a defender. It is in our weakness that we most  see God as our protector, our provider, our defender.

[00:03:13]So often, we want to hide our weaknesses. So often we want to act strong. When we act strong and we hide our weaknesses, we are missing the opportunity to depend on the one who will defend us. The one  who will wrap his arms around us. The one who loves us.

[00:03:34]I don’t know if you guys noticed, but there has been this pattern as I talk to people. When I ask how did you act and trust in that moment? Most often it’s a moment of weakness, a moment of challenge, where trust is grown in them, or trust is almost activated.

[00:03:53] I was talking with, a guest recently, Shelby Hughes, I’ll link her show, so you can go back and find it. Shelby was saying. She grew up in a Christian home and she trusted God.  And she would say she trusted God. But  as she had to step out and trust, as she had a hard challenge in her life and a weakness where she felt like she couldn’t handle it herself,  that’s when trust was grown in a different way in Shelby’s life. And I relate to that so much. I think that is often a common story in our lives.

[00:04:28]When everything seems to be going like it should be going or like, we want it to go. We can say that we trust God. But our trust is tested when something hard happens. Our trust is tested when we have a choice in front of us and we have to choose which way to go.  It does make me think of James one where it says, consider it pure joy. My brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know, the testing of your faith develops perseverance .

[00:04:59] When we are put in a position that we are weak, we’re faced with the question , am I going to trust? Am I going to step out in trust? 

[00:05:09] I started looking more and more at why I would want to surrender to God. What would make it easy to go under his authority?

[00:05:18]  I found myself reading in Psalm 25.

[00:05:21] ” To you,  O Lord, I lift up my soul. In you I trust. O my God. Do not let me be put to shame; nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are  treacherous without excuse.  Show me your ways O God, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways. According to your love, remember me for you are good. Oh Lord.”

[00:06:04]When I look at verse two, it says, “do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me.”

[00:06:11]  When I thought about surrendering to the one who would not let my enemies triumph over me, seeing him as my defender, seeing him as someone who would  not let me to shame.

[00:06:25]Changed the way that I looked  at God.

[00:06:28] As I was contemplating Psalm 25,  I was asking the question what it would mean to surrender to God? What would it be that I would put under his authority? What were the things in my heart and in my life  that I was holding on to,  and that I needed to bring to him   and surrender to his plan for them instead of mine? I wrote down a lot of things in my journal.  I wanted to share some of it with you. 

[00:06:55] It is hard to love unconditionally, but you love me unconditionally. It is hard to let others yell at me and think poorly of me. You sacrificed in this way, you did not raise your voice or defend yourself. It is hard to serve and not be recognized. But you owe God, give rain to the evil and the good.

[00:07:20]God you are the sustainer of life and the giver of joy.  What can I complain about that you do not know? You were rejected, abused, betrayed. You beaten forsaken. You were called a liar. Many did not believe your words. Your truth brought anger upon you.

[00:07:40]You love and forgave those who mocked you. You did not live in comfort. You had to tell the disciples over and over and yet they didn’t listen. Those who were closest to you denied knowing you. They did not follow. They did not understand your love.  You are not acknowledged as who you are or what you did.

[00:08:02]I want to complain that my kids don’t listen. I feel misunderstood. I don’t feel known my life is busy and I don’t know how to slow down and do it all.

[00:08:13] There’s so much to do. And yet, I don’t know. What are the things that you have called me to.

[00:08:19]I do know that you give me purpose. Purpose to bring you glory. Does my anger at my kids bring you glory? Does pretending everything is okay, bring you glory? Does my work or job or laundry or cleaning bring you glory?

[00:08:36] You have suffered the pain I have felt and much more. Yet you did not sin. You did not allow your desire or your good to take over.

[00:08:45]You deferred to  the father, you bowed for his glory, you sacrificed your wellbeing for those who no longer acknowledged you.

[00:08:55] Forgive us. How Lord for being so shortsighted. Forgive me for thinking that I have something to complain about.

[00:09:02] You are my joy. You are the one who sustains me, the one who sacrificed for me, what are you asking me to sacrifice for you?

[00:09:12] My pride and not being right and wanting to think I’m important. My picture of an easy life expectations and desires. My time for parenting doing thankless jobs. But what have you given up? You have given a position at the right hand of God and heavenly places. You left fame and fortune.

[00:09:34]You had a name which you made for yourself.

[00:09:37]Why  relationship, for love, to be on selfish.

[00:09:43] Why am I asked to give up desires and his stuff of this world?

[00:09:50]That’s the question I get stuck on so often, without even realizing that that’s the question behind my feeling, but why, why do I surrender?

[00:09:58]  I think the answer that we should come to is in second Corinthians five verse 15, and he died for all that. Those who live, might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for their sake and was raised.”

[00:10:14] Why am I asked. To give up the desires and stuff of this world. Why am I asked to surrender the things that I want?

[00:10:24]Because my God died for me. Because I love him because he loved me so greatly. He gave his life for me. And that should change how I live.  We talked about this in a recent show, that Jesus invites us to be his friend in John 15.

[00:10:46]And he says, “greater love has no one than this. Then he would lay down his life for his friends.” And Jesus did that. He laid down his life for his friends. What do we do with that?  Do we just leave that out there? Hanging like this? Wow. That was kind. Or do we enter into friendship? Do we enter into seeing this one that loves us so much has invited us to love him and to surrender to him?

[00:11:18]You guys, I think sometimes when we look at what we’re asked to be giving up, it seems so big and so hard. When we look at the term surrender and we think we need to give up our authority to someone else. The most important thing that we should do is to look at who are we being asked to surrender to.

[00:11:43]This God, this Jesus. Who surrendered to the Father’s will, who allowed himself to be rejected, accused, beaten, and forsaken being called a liar.

[00:11:55]This is the one to which I surrender. This is the one who is my defender.

[00:12:01] I want to read to you guys from second Corinthians 10 verse three, and it might take a second to reorient yourself as to why we’re here. But I want to remind you that surrender is a war term. Here we go.

[00:12:17]Second Corinthians 10 verse three

[00:12:19] “For though we live in the world.  We do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every  pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

[00:12:39] And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience. Once your obedience is complete.”

[00:12:50] I read that. And I think of the surrender. We are in a war and there is an authority that will protect us. Here  it talks about taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ. You guys, there are a lot of hurts that we bring to the cross. There are a lot of hard things that we surrender and lay at his feet, but we lay these things at the feet of one who protects and loves us.

[00:13:20]And you guys, when we think about surrender being a war term. And when we think about the fact that we are surrendering to one who can protect us. But yet, sometimes we act like he is the one that is against us.

[00:13:33]He is not the one who sets himself against us . We are the ones who set ourselves against him with our sin.

[00:13:40]And it is in the giving over of our sin, the confessing our sin in the coming over to stand with him, to walk with him.

[00:13:49]It is then the surrender they’re giving up our fight against him and seeing him for who he truly is. He truly is our defender and not the one who fights against us. This world has many enemies.

[00:14:07]but Jesus is not one of them. God is not one of them.

[00:14:10] He is our protector and our defender.

[00:14:15]I have another verse

[00:14:16] from Psalm 68, starting in verse three.

[00:14:20] ” But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful. Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds. His name is the Lord and rejoice before him, a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. He is God and his Holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads forth the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun scorched land.”

[00:14:52]I hear that, but the rebellious.  And I see that is those who won’t surrender. That is those who have made themselves against the defender.

[00:15:03]And I question, and I challenge you guys to look at your position. Are you actually defending yourself against the Lord or  are you stepping into surrender and allowing him to be your defender?

[00:15:19]I’m going to close us in prayer, dear God, I thank you so much for this time. I thank you for these words to my heart this morning, Lord, I thank you that you remind me that you desire to be my protector. Lord, help me to surrender the things that I am holding from you. The things that I am trying to do without your help, Lord Jesus. Lord, help us to admit our weakness and to trust you in it. Thank you for this reminder that you do not fight against us. You desire us and you love us Lord. And I pray Father  for all of us, for myself and for all the listeners, Lord God that we would surrender unto you. That we would give you what we have held back that we would stop the fight against you, but that we would step under your protection under your authority and under the many blessings that you offer us, Lord God.  Give us the strength to trust you and to step out in faith. And it is in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.

[00:16:23] Thank you guys so much for joining me. This has been such a joy to be able to go through God’s word with you. And I wanted to ask, how are you guys doing in your challenge? How are you doing? Are you reading God’s word? Are you surrendering  your desire for other things to spend time with God and learn at a greater depth who he is?

[00:16:43] Don’t forget, I do have a resource where you can sign up for my newsletter,  and  receive something that may help you along. It’s a five day  journaling resource, where we looks at scriptures alongside of questions that are designed to help you to figure out  what is the next obedient step to which God calls me. I want to give that to you guys as a gift, as a little encouragement, go ahead and to be in God’s word.

[00:17:08] And sign  up for my newsletter is going to be really helpful. Cause we are coming to the end of season one. Just two more shows left

[00:17:16] And I want to celebrate that with you guys. This has been such a fun season. Thank you for joining me in my learning. Thank you for encouraging me along, along the way. I pray that my words have been encouraging to help you to keep on stepping with the Lord, to keep surrendering to who he is calling you to be, to keep seeking him out in his word.

[00:17:39]As we’re closing up the season,  I don’t want to get disconnected from you guys.

[00:17:42] So you can find me at steps to trusting on both Instagram and Facebook, 

[00:17:48] I want to hear how you’re doing.

[00:17:50] I’m already working on season two and as I get ready for the launch, it also will be super encouraging for myself, but also for the show to have some great ratings and great reviews.

[00:18:02] So I would ask if you’ve been encouraged, would you take a moment? Would you go over and would you leave so review and tell me how I’m doing.

[00:18:11]We’ll see you back here next time where we will be talking with Emma Woodcock guys. You don’t want to miss this conversation.

[00:18:17]Emma is sharing with us impact of feelings and emotions. And, and we’re asking the question, are there bad emotions? You don’t want to miss it.

[00:18:29] But till then, I want to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10 for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Friends. I’m praying for you as you keep on stepping.