My spiritual mentor has always told me if a message is good for me, it’s good for others. God’s been working in my life and this is a message that He placed on my heart.
I want to give a little backstory before I get into the Scriptures. About a decade ago, I went through a really difficult time. After taking a large pay cut to follow God’s leading and seeing remarkable success in the business, I had a dream I needed to quit my job. In the dream, it was my pastor who told me this, and I argued with him as to why I couldn’t. In the natural I did not obey. A few months later, I was fired. I was confused and angry. I wanted vengeance for the lies spoke against me. I was stressed about our finances. After a week of negativity, I pressed into God seeking Him like I never had before. I don’t mean just my church attendance and listening to Bible teaching, or even just daily prayer and Bible reading. I threw myself into all things God related. I didn’t work for three months and sought Him in all my spare time. I started really studying the Bible, the Greek, the Hebrew, Bible Scholar commentary. I let Him pull out some roots from my childhood that I did not even know were there. God really did a transformation in my life, our finances and marriage at that time. I thought I had surrendered everything to God. He had shown up in such a powerful way during that time.
There are times during this season and since I feel like God wants me to do certain things, like quitting my job, sharing a Word, fasting, or even praying out loud corporately. I would generally sit there and pray for Him to use someone else, and a few times I know He did. Other times I felt the fire so urgent I could hardly stay seated with the surge of power I felt inside of me that I was trying to suppress. I got to the point if I feel comfortable with what He is asking or if I feel I MUST do something because of the fire inside, I will “surrender” to His will. Over the years I have prayed, gave a word of knowledge, even prophecy, but admit I kinda did it kicking and screaming on the inside. Like a child whose parents tell him, “Sit down” and he complies but rebelliously says “I’m standing up on the inside.”
Fast forward a decade. I think “I’m doing fairly good in this surrender thing.” I felt like God and I had reached an agreement. I even let Him know I would surrender to His will when asked directly, by someone else if I already had the idea that it is what He wanted (or what I really want Him to want.). I called it my “Year of Yes.” I was proud of my surrender and thought I could keep “surrendering” in one of those two way.
2025 was really a rough year for me emotionally, physically, mentally. I was attacked on so many fronts and was not getting any answers and no relief. It was a very dark night of the soul for pretty much the entire year. There were times I really wanted to give up, but I stayed faithful to God and continued to press into Him for relief. God started to show me I never really surrendered. Yes, I was faithful. Yes, I was obeying, but I was still doing so with great resistance.
See I saw surrender in three stages, the ones you see on television, or maybe have experienced firsthand when met with a law enforcement officer. Hands in the air, to me this is a universal sign of surrender, like a white flag in war time. It shows their hands are free of weapons, they are not a threat. However, on television I will often see the law enforcement officer have someone get down on their knees. This position of surrender prevents the detainee from running. And then the third position of surrender is face down hands behind their back, to prevent the detainee from fighting the arrest, the search, or whatever might be occurring.
I really felt like I had learned to surrender to the Lord in these manners. I had thrown up my hands, stopped running, and had even stopped putting up the fight after my questions or rebuttals were answered.
Since August of last year, I felt challenged to go to a deeper relationship abiding in Christ and knew I was not there. I have been praying for the Lord to make me willing to surrender – in personal abandonment and absolute trust. My intimacy with God is regular visits, but I still like to do things my way.
As I prayed, I felt God say “Quit your job, rely on Me. Let Me be Your Provider.” I thought I did rely on Him. He showed me that since I became a social worker in 2001, I have always had a salary. Even when I ran my own business, I kept a salary from a part time job. He showed me, I trusted myself. I trusted a salary as my provider.
I felt like I was back in 2014 because God had asked the same thing of me then, and I failed to obey. I knew I didn’t want to go through that difficult time again, so this time I said “okay”.
I made my plans to end my job in December. I figured this would allow me to finish out the year, have a vacation to see my kids and grandbabies for Christmas and then start the new year afresh. As the Bible says, “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
God had other steps for me to take, and they frustrated my plans. When I gave my notice, I learned my work required 90 days. So that moved me back to mid-February. I said I would stay until the end of February. Having given notice, I was not eligible to take off work which I would need in order to take a trip to visit my family for the Holidays. I was very disappointed.
I did not understand the delay, but was being obedient, working towards personal abandonment and absolute trust. Then I started running into issues with a transition from my part-time practice to full-time and some changes that needed to be made. I wanted to throw my hands up and say “never mind” but instead I asked my sisters in Christ to pray for me, every time we came together, I was asking for the same things. I felt like a broken record. Healing for my body and for God to make things fall into place so I could be paid timely. And in God’s perfect timing, He made things fall into place my very last day on the job.
Only then, did God reveal to me what true surrender looks like. I don’t really remember what I was doing when this picture came to my mind. But I realize that those three positions of surrender that I knew I had kind of mastered we’re still all done involuntary. God was looking for me to lay my life down.
I’m not sure why this came as a surprise to me based on Matthew 10:37-39, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
With each new level, God gives us fresh revelation to see things in a different light, no matter how long we have been a Christian.
Obedience and surrender really are costly. God will take my surrender, however it comes, but He really wants me to desire His will over my own, to willingly lay down my life for His sake.
Jesus set this example for us. Let look at Matthew 26:36-46
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.
So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”
What I get from this scripture is that it’s OK for me to question God’s Will. Jesus asked three times for the cup to pass from him but ultimately said not my will that yours be done. God is not offended by my questions. He is still looking for my surrender.
The other thing this passage shows me is that sometimes we do need our brothers and sisters to walk alongside us, to pray for us and just to be there physically to support us when we’re going through a difficult time. I know that my sisters in Christ were invaluable to me this past year. I don’t even know if I would be standing here without their prayers it really was such a dark time for me.
Despite Jesus’ questioning and despite his need for strengthening from both his friends and angels, Jesus willingly surrendered his life. When the time actually came, he said, not my will yours be done. hands in front of him he was willingly lead to his death. Several Scriptures prophecy of and show this willing surrender.
“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7
The temple guards and Roman soldiers came for him in mass, Jesus did not put up a fight, he was led to His death like a lamb to its slaughter. Jesus was laying down His life to submit to the Father. I am asked to lay down my life, but generally not to death, I am asked to lay down my comfort, my convenience, and my will.
“As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” John 10:15
Jesus was able to surrender His life willing because He knew and trusted the Father. Yes, we know Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30), but Jesus was also fully man. Faced with the same temptations.
“Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” John 5:19
Jesus trusted His Father’s will. He only did what His Father God wanted. We are also called to surrender our will and do what the Father asks.
““Therefore, My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”” John 10:17-18
Jesus had the ability to control the outcome but chose to surrender instead. I spent the past decade trying to control my surrender to God’s will, I wanted His results my way. God’s ways are higher than my ways and I will not get His lasting results by doing things my way.
Here’s the thing, God wants me, you, to live a surrendered life. I can do that kicking and screaming, fighting for my own way. I might even look like I have control and outward obedience. Ultimately, God is looking for me to choose his ways over my own. I can’t do that on my own. If I could, I really would have no no use for God after He showed me His plan. It is only through the power of Holy Spirit that I can willingly surrender. Galatians 5:16-25 in the msg
My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original. Galatians 5:16-25
When we don’t live as surrendered life, the works of the flesh will be evident. The selfish desires the need for me to be in control aren’t living surrendered. A surrendered life will produce the fruit of Holy Spirit. It is only when I walk with him that I can fulfill his will.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Surrender is more than just outward obedience to God’s will and way. God wants our willing surrender, and it is costly. At times we will need people to come alongside us, to pray with us and for us. Surrender will take close connection with the Heavenly Father, staying connected through prayer and daily time in His word, in addition to the fellowship we have here in church. And living a surrendered life can only be done when we choose to walk in and with Holy Spirt, laying down the desires of our own flesh. Will you continue to live for your own will? Or like I did for so long will you still surrender but only when it looks like you want it to or go kicking and screaming as you obey? Or will you choose to live a surrendered life willingly doing what God asks in the example set by Christ? God won’t force us to surrender but the benefits of surrender are eternal.
Restoring Voice 
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