What It Isn't

Have you ever gone somewhere new and you didn’t know where to find anything? Or maybe tasks that you use to know how to do are done differently? I know when I lived New Zealand, when I first moved there I did not know where anything was, not to mention the signs were in kilometers and meters. One time I asked the person who gave me directions “So can I walk that far or should I drive?” Since I had no concept of how far a meter or a kilometer was. Going to the grocery store was an adventure. It turns out in New Zealand napkins, well, they are sanitary napkins, not, the napkins I was looking for.

Surrender is a bit like I moved to a new country. I have been here before but I never really learned my way around very well. I am trying to figure out how do I live well in this place?

I have some basic ideas of course but, my struggle is to not know surrender in concept but to know surrender in the rubber meets the road living it out in the day to day. As I have been trying to figure this out, I have started to feel like I may be doing it backwards. I feel like I keep discovering all the things that most likely are not ways to live a surrendered life.

I somehow falsely, believe that surrender means that our adoption will take another 2 years, my worst-case scenario. I am not sure how or why I think this. I totally believe that God is orchestrating our adoption and I believe that we will adopt in God’s time not mine. But for some reason, I have believed or resigning myself to believe the worst-case scenario is what is going to happen. I am not certain why I do not believe the best of God.

As I have been trying navigate the surrendered life, I have realized that while I totally believe that God can do anything. I am not certain I believe that He will do it for me. Maybe it is a way to protect myself. Maybe it is one of ways the enemy can keep me defeated. Maybe it’s both, or maybe it is something else. I am not certain. But, I do know this, that is a bald face lie from the pit of hell.

This is not a lie I want to continue to believe. I am reminded in Jer 32:27 "I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? Yes, that is the truth I want to focus on as I continue to grow in what it means to surrender our adoption to the Lord. It looks like I have learned another thing surrender is not. Which is okay because eventually all that will be left is, what it is.