A Life Fully Surrendered

I used to think surrender meant giving something up.

Perhaps that is because this is how we speak about surrender.

Someone wins.

Someone loses.

One person stands.

The other puts down their weapons.

But surrender to Jesus has not felt like defeat.

It has felt like finally putting down everything I was using to defend myself from the One who never came to harm me.

My performance.

My explanations.

My shame.

My need to understand everything before saying yes.

My need to appear holy before approaching Holiness Himself.

I did not disappear when I surrendered to Jesus.

I became more present.

More human.

More myself.

Because He did not ask me to stop being human before coming near Him.

He met me there.

And over time, I began to understand that a life surrendered to Jesus is not a life lived frightened of getting Him wrong.

It is a life lived **with Him.**

In the sacred things, yes.

But also in the ridiculous things.

In grief.

In work.

In uncertainty.

In desire.

In irritation.

In laughter.

In the conversations where I do not know what to say.

In the moments when I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

Jesus does not occupy a religious compartment of my life.

**He has the whole house.**

And these are the things I have learned there.

1. Come as you are.

Not as you think you should be by the time you reach Him.

Come now.

Bring the mess with you.

Transformation happens in relationship with Him; it is not the admission requirement.

2. Let Him lead. Give Him your yes.

Surrender is not passivity.

Again and again, there is participation: *yes*.

Yes when you understand.

Yes when you do not.

Yes freely given.

He leads; you follow.

And love does not need to drag you behind it.

3. Don't perform. Be present.

Jesus does not need the Christian version of you.

Prayer does not require a voice you only use when speaking to God.

Sit there.

Talk.

Be quiet.

Cry.

Tell the truth.

Presence before performance.

4. Bring Him into the human stuff.

Not only death, salvation, calling and purpose.

Bring Him into Monday morning.

The stupid argument.

The person you fancy.

The work problem.

The thing you're embarrassed to admit bothered you.

If He has your life, He gets the ordinary rooms too.

5. No shame in His presence.

Conviction and shame are not the same thing.

Surrender means there is nowhere inside you that must remain hidden before you approach Him.

6. Let Him love you first.

Before service.

Before proving devotion.

Before accomplishing something worthy of Him.

Receive.

Christianity begins with what God has done, not with your attempt to impress Him.

7. Choose Him daily, but never out of fear.

Not *choose Me or I will abandon you.*

Not terror dressed as devotion.

Love responds to love.

Today's yes belongs to today.

8. Laughter is worship too.

A surrendered life doesn't have to become unbearably solemn.

Gratitude.

Delight.

Ridiculous joy.

The full-bodied laugh that makes your stomach hurt.

These too can exist before God.

Holiness is not misery.

9. You are His and He is yours.

Not ownership as possession in the ugly human sense.

Belonging.

Covenant.

Relationship.

*I am not wandering through existence unattached.*

10. He is not going anywhere. He is always right... there.

Because surrender becomes possible when you stop expecting Jesus to disappear.

When you fail.

There.

When you doubt.

There.

When you are grieving.

There.

When you are laughing so hard you can barely breathe.

There.

When you have been faithful.

There.

When you have made an absolute bloody mess of something.

Still there.

Perhaps this is what surrender has become for me.

Not disappearing into Jesus.

Not becoming less human so that I might become more holy.

Not living every day terrified that one wrong movement will make Him leave.

It is waking up and saying:

**You have my yes.**

And then living the whole day with Him.

Not above me somewhere.

Not waiting at the end of my life.

Not confined to Scripture opened on a table or prayer spoken with closed eyes.

Here.

In all of it.

**Right... there.**

And tomorrow, if I wake again,

I will give Him my yes again.