One of my favourite hymns is Take My Life and Let it Be. Particularly verses four and five stand out to me:
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose, every power as thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne, it shall be thy royal throne.
A life dedicated to walking with the Lord is a constant battle to surrender to him. In a world where money is important for a lot of things, the idea of surrendering all that to the Father is scary. What happens if He doesn’t provide the way we hope?
I remember hearing a story about someone who felt called to tithe 90% of their income. They were nervous, because what if? How would they get by on so little? But when they obeyed that still, small voice, they did get by. God provided.
I think sometimes we hear stories like this and think, “Oh, if I start giving things to God, He’s going to bless me/repay me or something.” We get this weird expectation in our heads that us doing something good automatically equals something good for us. However, I don’t think this is the point. We aren’t called to give because we want something back.
To give our silver and gold is to give it away with zero expectation of it coming back. And that is a lot more difficult for most of us.
Surrendering our intellect can look a lot of different ways. I think it depends on the person, but one way I can think of to surrender my intellect is to surrender the logical answers. We want to come up with the smart answers, the solutions to the problems. Sometimes, that’s not the best way to do it. Sometimes it’s better to give it to the Lord.
Take my will and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine. This is one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing to do in our walk with God. Whole and complete surrender is hard. You can give everything to the Lord one day and then snatch it right back the next. You can so easily keep your hands firmly on the steering wheel, even if that’s sending you into the ditch.
I’ve been trying to learn to surrender things to the Lord. It’s hard. Because sometimes you surrender and things work out great! Everything works out the way you planned, or even better than you hoped. But sometimes – sometimes things do not work out the way you planned. Surrender can lead you away from something you want so much. But that’s the point of surrender. It is to say, “Lord, your plans are better than mine. I trust you to take over.” Sometimes His plans don’t really make sense. Sometimes they are scary. Sometimes it hurts to realize that something you were reaching so hard for isn’t the direction God wants to take you.
But it’s worth it. Surrendering to God is always worth it.
And that’s what makes me able to surrender. The truth that the Lord has better plans than me, the truth that a life lived for the Lord is not about what I want. It’s about what He wants.
“Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.” Psalm 37:5
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6
