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Surrendering
to God
Too often, I have viewed obeying God as trying to maintain some
kind of checklist. The subconscious idea was simply that God
established a list of rules and life was a test to see how many of
them I could accomplish. But why did God choose those rules? Why
did He say we needed to assemble (Hebrews
10:25)? Why did He say we should be baptized (Acts
2:38)? Why did He say we should put away anger, wrath,
malice, bitterness, resentment and replace them with kindness,
tender-heartedness and forgiveness (Ephesians
4:31-32)? Am I simply to follow these as best I can so I
can be good enough to go to heaven?
Not at all. Consider a metaphor. I love
to go white water rafting. I have been on the Ocoee twice, down
the New River Gorge and on the Nantahala. Despite the different
locations and the different guides, one thing has always been the
same. The first instruction each guide has given is, “Whatever I
tell you, listen to me immediately.”
Sometimes the guide tells us to paddle,
stop paddling. Sometimes only one side needs to paddle. Sometimes
we need to paddle in reverse. Sometimes we need to lean right,
sometimes left. Sometimes we need to drop down into the raft with
our oars pointed in the air. Sometimes we need to jump up quickly
and start paddling again. Whatever the instruction, we listened
and obeyed.
However, it wasn’t always that easy.
Sometimes I thought we should head in one direction, but the guide
sent us another. Sometimes I wanted to drop in the bottom when the
guide said to lean one way or paddle. Sometimes I thought we
needed to paddle when the guide said stop. I did what the guide
said anyway. Was it because I hoped I would measure up to the
check list of white water rafting rules and therefore be good
enough not to fall in the water? No. It was because I knew the
guide’s way would work. The guide had been down the river
before. He knew the danger spots and proper routes. She knew how
to avoid danger and if we got in it by not doing well, how to get
out. I wasn’t trying to measure up. I simply surrendered my will
to the guide’s because the guide’s way worked.
That is what it means to surrender to
God and His will. I may not always know why God has given a
specific direction, understand how God’s way can be better or
see where God’s way leads. God, however, knows the way. God is
the guide. I don’t obey Him to try to measure up so I can go to
heaven. I obey Him because I know His way works and will get me to
heaven. If God says lean right, I lean right. If He says paddle
harder, I’ll paddle harder. If He says drop down in the boat,
I’ll drop down in the boat. That won’t make me good enough to
go to heaven. I’ve already blown that. But it will get me to
heaven because God’s way works.
That is what Galatians
2:20 and Romans 12:1 are all about. We sacrifice
ourselves to follow God’s way, crucifying ourselves with Christ
not to measure up. Rather, because we know God’s way works.
Let’s surrender to our guide; He knows what He is doing.
Edwin L. Crozier
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