Surrendering to God (When It Hurts)

(Note: this post has been adapted from a speech I made at a college ministry women’s retreat in early 2018.)

Galatians 2:20– “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Something that has been on my heart for a very long time is the concept of surrendering your life and your plans up to the Lord. I feel as if this is a concept that is talked about over and over in the church, and we give this Christian-ese cursory glance at it, like “of course I’m giving up my life to God!”, but we really don’t realize what it means. Full surrender to God means growing pains. It means hurting a little to gain a lot. Christ has offered us fullness and we keep clinging to the little things–I want to remind you what that means for us.

At three years old, I decided I wanted to become a veterinarian. I just knew I was going to go to college for animal science (which I did) and then go to vet school (which I didn’t) and then move either onto a ranch or into the forests of India to work with the tigers. Of this I was 100% sure. Everything I worked towards from then on was in pursuit of that goal above all else. Then, when I was seventeen years old, I got my first clear ‘no’ from God. It’s hard to hear those things plainly, but I suddenly knew–that was not the path for me. And honestly? I struggled with that. I struggled through my junior year and senior year of high school and part of my freshman year of college with choosing to still pursue that goal even though I was certain that is not what the Lord wanted from me.

In addition to that, my junior year of high school I started dating one of my best friends. We had been friends for years and it just seemed natural. He was in the military stationed nearby, supposed to be sent across the world in the next year and a half. We thought we were going to get married (as many young people in military relationships do.) When he didn’t end up getting shipped off, we decided to postpone getting married (spoilers: it never happened.) Everything was great. And then, it seemed very suddenly, everything wasn’t. He left the military and mostly stopped talking to me and fully stopped talking to God (but that’s his story.) I lied to myself and I didn’t listen to God for a long time. I felt God’s urges to break up with him, but I felt the power of that commitment even stronger. I had said I was planning to marry this person, and I felt like there was no way out of that. A commitment is a commitment, I told myself, no matter what feels like it’s right. Of course, these feelings weren’t upfront. I lied to myself. I lied to other people. I pretended everything was fine, because I was SO SURE that if I waited things out, I could fix things between the two of us.

If you ask my discipler or my best friend, they can tell you all about this next part. I spent all of my sophomore year of college praying and praying to give up my own Type A planning tendencies in favor of God’s plans for me, as well as quietly and much less often praying that my boyfriend would start listening to God again. I was ashamed of how little work I let God do in my life and afraid of what would happen if my boyfriend did not turn back to God. I couldn’t picture what that marriage would look like, even though I was fully committed to it happening. (Another side note: if you’re in that situation, get out. If you can’t see a relationship honoring God, it’s not one you should be in. No matter HOW MUCH THAT HURTS.) But anyways.. I spent ALL of that year, every single discipleship meeting, every single Bible study, every single quiet time praying fervently that I would give up my plans to the Lord. It is the hardest thing I think I have ever prayed for. And finally, God answered me in sweeping and overpowering ways. And I’m gonna be honest with you, it was (and is) terrifying for someone who wants every part of their life meticulously planned and pre-prepared to suddenly have that all disappear.

God answered my prayer all right. All my career goals suddenly seemed blurry and by the beginning of my junior year, my relationship had reached a breaking point. For four months, I had VERY CLEAR indicators that I should break up with him, yet I put it off and put it off. Even the process of doing so lasted three weeks–weeks in which I continued acting like everything was under my control until the very last. Then suddenly–nothing. I no longer had plans to get married, I no longer had career paths, I didn’t know where I was going to live, what I was going to do, what my life would look like after I graduated. Everything was broken and everything hurt, and I had nowhere to go. The only place I had to turn was into the safe guidance of Christ. And let me tell you, that is the best place to be.

I never imagined sharing this on the internet, but if what I experienced helps one person with a similar problem, I think this raw truth is worth it. Recently I heard it said that openness is talking about all the struggles you’ve faced truthfully after the situation is over, and vulnerability is being honest about the struggles you’re facing currently. I guess I must be being vulnerable here, because I am definitely not done facing these struggles. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I have head knowledge of that, and have for a long time, but only within these last few years has that begun to be lived out in the deepest reaches of myself. What does that mean, to no longer live, but to have Christ live in us? Well, it means a lot of things.

The first thing you’ve got to know is that dying to self hurts. It hurts a lot. These are the growing pains I was talking about earlier. Even if you’re not a planner like I am, it’s gonna hurt to give up all your dreams and all your goals and say, “God, your will be done.” But what we should–no–what we NEED to realize is that our goals are so much smaller than God’s goals. We can’t understand the fullness of His plan, so when we try to live out our little plans, we’re trying in our own sinful ways to try to take God’s job. Isaiah 64:8 says, “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” If we don’t allow ourselves to be moldable clay, if we remain rigid, we will ultimately break. But if we allow ourselves to be molded by the Potter, we can trust that He has a plan to overcome the obstacles in our way. We aren’t MEANT to take on the burden of planning our whole future–that’s God’s job. But it can feel like we have nothing in the preparation for all that He will bring us. It’s really hard to be willing to have open hands, because so many things in our life seem like if we give them up, it will all be over. I don’t know what it is for you, but for me, pride took over in a lot of these moments. I told myself that since I SAID I was going to become a vet, since I SAID I was going to marry my ex-boyfriend, I now HAD to do it because I would be disproving all those who doubted me. I didn’t take into account what God wanted out of those things, I just wanted to prove people wrong and show them that I am in control. But if we’re being vulnerable here, me being in control and holding on to those things would have screwed me over! I would be stuck in a job I wasn’t passionate about (and in debt for a job I wasn’t passionate about) and even worse, stuck FOREVER in a marriage that wasn’t loving, communicative, or God-honoring. Going through the pain I felt from the loss of these things was something that needed to happen for my own betterment.

What could this mean, though, for you? Likely you do not have the same story as I do, or even a similar one. We are all different, with our own things that matter to us deeply and our own deeply broken paths to reach where we are today. Our commonality is found in Christ. For you, these struggles may not be pride-based at all. Fear can also play greatly into the inability to give things up–wondering if we let go of something, how will we be secure without it? Here in college it can be the fear of giving up our academics to God, knowing that our GPAs can often seem to define us in this phase of life–it is easy to say we are not defined by them, but not so easy to feel it. If the thing you need to give to God is a career path or goal, we can wonder how we will find financial security outside of it, even through true security is found in God alone. It is natural and normal for us to worry that we will not get what we want out of life if we give up those things we have worked so hard for out of our own strength. What is not natural for us is constantly remembering why we give those things up–in pursuit of the greater Goal. I would encourage you all, find ways to remind yourself how big God’s plans are in contrast to our little ones.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Mark 8:35 illustrates to us what the promise is for those of us who do surrender. Opening up our hands and giving our plans to God is the path to a real life. When we cling to our own plans, we will find ourselves living out a life that is so much less than what God has in store for us if only we chose to listen.

If I had to write a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) for this, let it be this: you have to be willing to get hurt. You have to be willing to deal with those growing pains–going through the pain of giving up those things that seem so important for you. First of all, if you are open-handed with God in these things, He is not necessarily going to take them away. Maybe there is just a better way that you could be utilizing those things in pursuit of God’s glory! But you do have to be willing to give it up if necessary. Get yourself a support system and remember that Christ will be your greatest support in this time. Be big-picture and remember how big God’s plans for all of us are, even if we only see a little part of them. And go to Scripture to remind yourself what the lives of people who gave themselves up to God looked like. Through these things, you can live that life that is fully open to God’s plans for you.

(End note: it’s been a little time since I originally wrote this, and I made a couple tweaks to the wording but left it mostly untouched. I am still dealing with a lot of these things–learning how to “let go and let God” as the saying goes. I’m married now & have a job, but I’m still trying to figure out what God has in store for me. I think it’s a never-ending journey for everyone, but let me just say, giving God the reins in your life is a wonderful thing.)