Recently I said out loud to myself: ” I give up”. Those of you who know me, know that I am not a quitter. I will go down fighting, but never give up. As soon as I heard myself say those words, I recalled the Scripture:
For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man bring evil tings out of the evil stored in him. (Matthew 12:34-40)
I stopped in my tracks recognizing that my heart was full of discouragement and weariness. I had been storing up discouragement and the Lord grabbed my attention that I needed instead to lean into HIM. As I was pondering this, I sensed Him whispering to me: ” Joanne, there is no room in the kingdom for giving up; only surrender.”
As I write this blog, I wonder how many of you are thinking of quitting: your job? Your marriage? Giving up on church or a relationship with God? We all find ourselves at these kinds of crossroads every now and again. But giving up, is not the solution. Leaning in to God is. Surrendering to Jesus is the answer. He has given us permission to let go and to give Him our burdens.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
Back to my story…. I stood up, said I would not give up and handed my discouragement and weariness to God. There is no magic in this friends. It is simply a surrender of control. We cannot control everything, and in fact it’s better if we don’t. I prayed a simple prayer of letting go and trusting the Holy Spirit to lead, guide and direct my path, and the exchange was made; my life turned over yet again to HIm.
Why do we want to be in control? Glad you asked. We want to be in control because we are fearful of being out of control. We are fearful that things will not turn out the way we would like or that if we don’t DO something then things will never change. The truth is we do often have to do something, but that something is better placed in the hands of God and led by HIs gentle Spirit.
So if any of you today are feeling a bit overwhelmed or discouraged then this word is for you. If you are not, it will be for you one day. We all have our days that cause us to grab the reins of our lives and gallop in the wrong direction. Better to hand the reins to God. He is a better (actually the best) guide.
Please join me for my morning secret place devotionals online. Am doing this over the summer to keep us connected. And remember to sign up for our Drawing Near classes live or through our anywhere anytime classes.
