I Surrender All

I am married to a musician and for some reason, most people assume that I am musical as well. I can’t tell you the number of times someone has asked me if I sing or play an instrument like my husband does. Isn’t that kind of strange? I mean, no one asks the wife of an engineer if she is really good with numbers or tools. Anyway, I digress. Music for me is a lot like most things in my life, I’m not great at it, really barely proficient, but I can fake it for awhile. My life lives up to the saying, “Jack of all trades, King of none.” I can play one song on the piano with two hands but that is only because I have been practicing it for so many years, I have it memorized. Truth is, I can barely read the bass cleft at all. It has been a song though that I have loved for as long as I can remember. It’s the “old” hymn, I Surrender All.

There are not a lot of words to it and I think the simplicity of the chorus is one thing that has drawn my heart to the lyrics.

V1 All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Chorus I surrender all,
  I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
    I surrender all.

V2 All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

V3 All to Jesus I surrender,
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel Thy Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

V4 All to Jesus I surrender,
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power,
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

The words, “I surrender all” are repeated so many times through out this song, I thought it was important to start here. I believe that actually arriving at completely surrendering Ev. Er. Y. Thing to Jesus is something that very few people, if any, are able to do this side of heaven. Our sin nature and war within ourselves takes every chance it can get to trick us into not surrendering. It is a constant, every day, every hour, sometimes every minute battle that is waged in our minds, to lay it all down at His feet.

There is a difference though between recognizing the war and fighting our nature to need to be in control and jumping off the deep end into worry, power, self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We operate much like a parent teaching their child to drive. We get things to a manageable environment and cautiously hand over control of the vehicle until, from our perspective, they screw it up. Then we kick them out of the drivers seat and regain control over the situation.

As long as things are going good in our lives then we are comfortable letting God be in control. We sing about how we have surrendered all to Him how we love and worship Him, how we trust Him. But once things start to follow a path that is outside of the ones we have approved, we let God know that this was not the best plan thank you very much and we will be taking over from here. We didn’t mean that we surrender all, we meant that we will take His blessings and the circumstances in life that don’t cause us or our loved ones any pain.

We need to start recognizing when we are attempting to try and take back control and “un”surrender things to Him.

Let’s continue with verse 1. “All to Him I FREELY give.” This word freely stuck out to me. I know you know what freely means but there’s something about this word that brings to mind these verses from 2 Corinthians 9, “⁶ The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. ⁷ Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” I know these verses are talking specifically about money but through many different stories the Bible makes a connection between our money and the state of our heart. These verses are making the point that it really isn’t about the amount of money but how freely we trust God with it. Freely giving ALL to Him would include our money but goes so far beyond that with everything we love in our lives. How quickly and freely and cheerfully do we release our money, our other possessions, our children, our jobs, our status and recognition, etc to God to let Him have His way with them?

The verse continues, “I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.” The truth is, you cannot really surrender everything to Jesus if you don’t love and trust Him. I believe the converse is also true, if you are not surrendering everything to Him, then you are not trusting Him fully. Again, our sin nature makes this very hard. I believe this is what sanctification looks like, that as we grow in our walk with the Lord, we learn to trust Him more and more and we are able to surrender to Him more and more. When I can feel my spirit react to surrendering something to Him that doesn’t come naturally, I try to stop and ask myself where my trust level is at. I quickly realize I’m not trusting Him to take care of a situation in the same way that I would. This then begs the question, do I trust Him to take care of the situation in the best way, even if it is different than how I would do it? The only way to really live in this place of constant surrender and trust, is to live daily in His presence. This means spending time each day talking and LISTENING to Him, soaking in truths found in the Bible, reminding yourself all through out the day that He is loves you and is for you and with you. You can surrender this to Him also.

Verse 2 continues with, “Humbly at His feet I bow.” A humble heart in knowing who we are and what we can really control is key to our full surrender. We can control our actions and responses but that’s about the limit. There are so many circumstances that are beyond our power to even influence and a true realization of that brings us humbly bowing before Him, willing to surrender to the only One who can control and change things.

“Worldly pleasures all forsaken,” where do we even start with this. Obviously the Lord created a beautiful world full of good things, so when do we cross the line into worldly pleasures being a bad thing? Why should we forsake them? I believe the place that these pleasures hold in our hearts creates the opportunity for sin. There are some litmus tests to know if we have traded in worshipping the One True God for an idol. Things like, do we care who we hurt or what rules we break in order to gain some form of pleasure? What are we willing to sacrifice to gain or protect that happiness? Does all or most of our time and money go toward getting more of a pleasure we have found? Are we seeking it in private or secret? If Jesus asked us to walk away from it, even if it wasn’t sinful, could we? Would we? How easily could we leave it all behind? How tight of a grip do we have on it?

Verse 3 talks about the security of knowing who we are, where we belong and how much of the Lord we can be assured of having. When we have surrendered completely to Him, we can be filled with His power and know that He is completely ours. This kind of communion wipes away fear and worry and fills us with confidence.

The last line of verse 4 says, “Let Thy blessing fall on me.” It took me back to the 2 Corinthians passage we looked at earlier. It was talking about reaping what you sow. If you sow bountifully, then you will reap bountifully. If we surrender ourselves so completely to Him, then He is able to bless us with His presence in bigger, fuller ways. When I think of the word bountifully I imagine store houses that can’t contain the abundance of the harvest. That will be our lives. We will be overflowing with the peace and joy that comes from an intimate heart bond with the Savior of the world.

What is it that you struggle with surrendering? What circumstance are you trying to control? One of my biggest struggles is how much pain other people go through, especially my children. It is so hard to let them walk through hard things, but in reality, I have no power to change it. That usually doesn’t stop me from trying, or at least going over and over it in my mind of how I would have done it differently. The truth is that the Lord is strong enough to have done it differently and He didn’t, so why was that? Do I trust Him and am I willing to surrender the lives of my loved ones to Him? Some days it’s easier than others but I wrestle with my emotions and try to remind myself of the truth.

The next time you hear this song, let it wash over you and allow the Holy Spirit to come in and examine what your heart might not be surrendering to Him. Take that next step into more fully surrendered and see what peace you find in having more of Jesus.

Your Fellow Traveler

lacey