Surrender If You Mean It

I haven't posted in a while mainly because I wanted to have news, perhaps even an exciting story to tell. I really wanted to wait until after my brain surgery, whether I was expecting to be able to headline a post by saying "GLORY TO GOD FOR I AM HEALED!" or maybe I was waiting to say "MY HOPE IS GONE: I WILL NOW CURSE GOD AND DIE." Either way I am not going to post either. At least not yet anyways.

I watched this episode of the Office the other day and this quote made me laugh.

"Michael: If she's engaged, I'm going to go crazy, and I'm going to start attacking people. If she's not engaged, in all honesty, I might just burn this whole place down to the ground out of happiness. Either way I am going to need some talking down, and nobody talks me down like myself in a video talking me down."

I might not be making a video but I figure putting my thoughts down in words might just do the job to either lift me up in the future or tear me down.

A large amount of people have been asking me lately "How are you feeling?" I am not sure I have been able to answer that question with 100% honesty to anyone. Because the truth is I don't even know how I'm feeling. You might as well ask me what the purpose of life is because I'm just as close to knowing the answer to that as I am of knowing the answer to how I am doing.

So I'm going to ask myself a different question, instead of "how are you feeling?" I'm going to ask "What do you know?"

Here is what I know:
1) After the first week of February I will have begun a new chapter in my life. Whether it will be good in my eyes or not I do not know.

2) I know what my desires are, but are they the same as Gods. "Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart."

3) Gods plan is good, no matter what. "...in all things God works for the good of those who love him." So if surgery is not successful I need to understand and believe that God (not myself) knows what is best. "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" I hope and pray that God shows me mercy.

4) Right now I am not sure if I truly believe that God is enough. I say I do but how can I know unless I'm put to the test? If I need to learn through weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities that Gods grace is sufficient, then so be it. But I know it will not be with my own strength.

My worship team was playing a couple Sundays ago and we sang Surrender. I love this song but I really struggle with it because I'm not sure if I truly live what the lyrics are saying.

"I'm giving You my dreams, laying down my rights, I'm giving up my pride"

Have I given God my dreams? my rights? my pride?

"And I Surrender, All to You, all to You"

Have I surrendered all? Have I surrendered everything to God?

The only way I can sing this song is if I sing it as a prayer to God. A prayer that I might someday be in a place where I can say "God I have surrendered without exception my life to you."

May God's will be done with my surgery and with my life. May his Grace be sufficient and may I someday be able to sing I Surrender with a sincere heart.