The Journey of Surrender

“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”- Mark‬ ‭8:35‬

On December 6th, at 10:50 PM, I felt something I never felt before. I felt like something just was tearing my heart apart. It didn’t feel like God, but sin. I never felt anger like this. I was scared and needed to do something. I prayed that night and started listening to Him. I prayed at least 4 times until I passed out on my couch. I woke up around 4:30 AM and I heard God’s voice. He said only one word. One word that I thought I heard Him said two months ago at church, but I ignored Him. The word He said was surrender.

“Surrender? Surrender what Lord? What do I need to surrender?” I said. I started to think and I started fasting on December 7th from social media. I had to reflect on what can cause me to be full of sin or be tempted by Satan. As I continued to fast from social that first week, I started to surrender something else, my pride. Sometimes our pride can block the full potential that God created at the beginning for us. My pride kept me from trusting God with my finances, my love life, and my popularity. I thought I had to do it all because the sounds of the world were louder than God’s voice. Oh, how foolish I was and actually, probably will in the future. In life, we will make more mistakes/wrong decisions than the right ones. If I wanted to live in a full relationship with God, I had to surrender my pride.

The world tells us that surrendering is a weak move. The world tells us so many things that it forgot who created it. God created the world. God doesn’t look at surrendering as weakness, but strength. Jesus told His disciples that they must deny themselves and carry the cross. (Matthew 16:24) Jesus was basically saying surrender yourself and follow me completely, not partially. I know I follow God's partiality this past year. I didn’t make Him my number 1 every day. He sometimes was number 2. God is not number 2. He’s always number 1.

If we don’t surrender completely to Jesus, we will never find freedom. If we don’t surrender, we will never have eternal happiness, eternal blessings, and eternal joy. I am thankful and proud to let the word surrender be my word for 2020. I surrender it all to Him. My life, my heart, my money, my job, my mind, my strength, my good news, my bad news, my heartaches, my heartbreaks, my pain, and my body all to Him. It’s time to grow. Lord, I surrender 2020 to You.