Surrender and Trust

Rereading Old Posts...Feb 5, 2007

Surrender and Trust

These are two things I constantly struggle with in my own walk with God. I can't surrender b/c I can't trust. I think trust in itself is one that is such a delicate balance of understanding personal responsibility vs. divine sovereignty. Where is the line I draw in terms of ambition, but at the same time, not walking away feeling like I did it. Its a dependence on self and I see it all the time. I think the tell-tale signs are the habits of worrying that have developed and it provides no sense of peace when I think about the future. There are only anxiety and thoughts of what might and will happen, and predicated on those thoughts are the constant feelings of uncertainty that exist in a world that is not for certain. And so what it is that I able to hold onto is myself for in myself, I feel a sense of immediate certainty but at the same time, it is built on a foundation that is so uncertain. My own self knowledge is made of my own thinking and my own perceptions and values of how I view myself dependent on a gradient that has been shaped ever since my own birth. Whether it be parents, society, and/or inner proddings, I find myself aspiring to this greater thing that I ought to be without any thought of what God wants from me or so it seems.

In this tension I live in, and so I have to reconcile this deeper divideness in my heart, for it is this despondent cry for identity that is leaking ever so slowly into the fabric of my own daily life. This is where I need God to speak again and for myself to see who I am in light of the creator. This is why I so desperately desire to hear His voice in the quietness of my soul. There was a time where I would've yearned for that spiritual high, that feeling of no greater thing, but I have found those to be mere experiences, some lasting, but most an experience that left me unchanged. How foolish we have become to think that experiences measure the depth of our own existence. Emotions and good feelings guide are own spirituality and we wonder why we ride this roller coaster of a faith. I cannot sit here in judgement but only in confession knowing that I am oh so guilty of that sin...and to place in one step more, my own knowledge condemns me once again.

And it is here in the deeper parts of my soul that I find a longing to be with my creator. It is here in my brokeness and my desolation of hopelessness, that the creator arises and speaks truth. In his whisper, I find peace and in His vision I find ambition. Here is where the dreams are produced and life begins, and I must come here once again.

Just as that song says, when the music fades, and all is stripped away...the bustling of cars honking, the weaving inner thought colliding, and that consistent nagging that persists in wondering whether you will receive all you want.... This is where I want to be....to hear my maker, to respond to His annoucement for the life He's given me. It is here I realize that it isn't me that made me, but it is Him that gave me it all.

Perhaps what we need is not more, but less... the real truth is we have heard the sermons, the messages, prayer meetings, this and that....spiritual experience spiritualized....Christian life disected, re-disected, analyzed, scrutinized, and here we come unchanged for all the analysis and describing of what our life ought to be...we are left....so still...so unsure... so fragile. And perhaps this is part of the existence God calls us, for in this we find are own desperate need for hope, and a grace that can quench that thirst. Another voice that has been there always, wishes just to spend time and to come close, and this is what we need. It is as if we try to have all the fluff and appearance of a healthy relationship, but behind closed doors, it is but a rotting carcass of empty promises and unfulfilled dreams. We have sold ourselves out for the appearance b/c we want the easy way to it all...the quickest way to be spiritual, but yet we don't realize how this is an impossibility and we admire from afar the great stories of old. Our own imagination plays with these thoughts of being great, living for Christ, yet we don't realize that these great lives were forged in the inner depths of the daily grind, the appreciation of the seconds of each waking moment...to appreciate breath is to appreciate life and here it is where we have become so consumed in consuming....

How can it be that revival meetings....can fail??? Doesn't revival meeting connote the fact that revival exist and revival itself points to a communal change in spirit...I don't condemn the good intentions behind it, but I do ask the question to all of us, does not revival start at the cross? Divine inspiration meets its appointment on our knees in front of our maker...not in front of another good praise band or another great speaker. God has given us all we need...but yet we think we need more and this is one of the most clever concepts pulled by the devil. Here we are, 21st century Christians, who have everything they could ask for...desiring more and needing less... and so it is the fact that our faith has become so dependent on experiences and not on our relationship with God.

It is said that a preacher often preaches to himself and that is probably what I'm doing....but in it I find a truth that arises to speak to those around me...so often frustrated at the condition of self....how do we change....

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." G.K. Chesterton

Mainstay - Believe
I don't know if I still have the strength to get up again
I don't know if I can face my own reflection
Jesus, take this heart that feels
so cold again, and make it new

I hold this hope inside that you'll never leave me

When all around me starts to fall,
and when my faith it seems so small
Even in my darkest hour, I will believe
Even if the sun begins to fall,
even when I feel nothing at all
Even if I'm all alone, I will believe

I don't know how I could turn my back and walk away
All I really want is for your love to hold me
Jesus, take this heart and make it whole again

I know you'll never leave me