In the Chinese language, included in the meaning of the word crisis is the understanding of a subsequent opportunity. In the moment of crisis, one has to make a choice. To bow down beneath the weight of an event, pressure, or demand. Or to persevere and hope against hope.
God has been teaching me the lesson of "a hundred different surrenders". I look around me with longing to have the kind of character that I see around me. An honest, straightforward disposition. A giving, overflowing heart. A voice bursting with poetry. A mind full of intelligence and wisdom. A nature that knows not a stranger and reaches out for a friend. A temperament that stands strong for what is right even when alone.
I believe that contained in these sightings of mine are examples of virtue for which to strive toward, even honestly recognizing their fullness in those I know and their lack within me. I know that I could take it a step further and envy these beautiful qualities in dear friends of mine. And this is surrender #1.
Surrenders #2-50 involve my refraining from taking it upon myself to conjure up these qualities within me. Because while I can recognize, honor, and aspire to them, I cannot chase after them as if they are game to be caught and eaten. Oh no. They more like waves to swim in an endless ocean. I will never arrive to their destination. Qualities do not work that way; neither do relationships. I must submit to the process of sanctification if I hope to see anything within me worth honoring. And sanctification is the hard process of God's beating metal into something useful and lovely, the metal being my heart.
Surrenders #51-100 involve my dancing on the line where freedom and discipline meet. I think that this is the line on which God metaphorically dwells and calls us to join Him. I have this theory that people can be oversimplistically divided into two categories--those who embrace freedom and those who embrace discipline. Our personalities seem to favor one over the other (judgment versus perception in Myers-Briggs terminology). First of all, we should recognize the beauty and necessity of both and encourage the expression of each in one another. Secondly, we should allow God to show His grace through the one that we so easily express and His power through the one that we struggle to attain. I believe He is glorified in this. Lastly, we should recognize that the body of Christ is not just me or you but all of us. May the disciplined ones teach, challenge, and support the free ones, and vice versa. And in our unity, may we walk together in both. (I hope it is understood that I am not implying that disciplined people are not free, or the other way around--remember this is an oversimplification for the purpose of making a point).
Surrenders #100+ are where my dreams live. The previous surrenders don't touch these, because they are so tender and close to my heart. They are my heart. But what is funny about the previous surrenders is that in leading me through those first, God does a work of trickery (also known as wisdom and goodness). He kneads into my will an openness that is possible because of the good fruit and overflowing joy experienced in the wake of the previous surrenders.
I'm going to tell you something in all honesty, a realization that hit my consciousness straight on like a dart to a bullseye. Ten years ago, five years ago, two years ago--this is not at all where I dreamed to be. And yet I could cry with how grateful I am that I am here. It makes me want to speed the surrenders up, simply for all the wonderful places I can go. But in reality, I know that's not the point. The point is...(your patience has earned it) that we do not arrive anywhere beautiful or sacred without a hundred different surrenders preceding it. That is the way God has designed it--a delightful relationship.
So this is my story of a hundred different surrenders.
