If our idea of surrender to God is limited to renouncing unlawful things,
Then we have yet to grasp surrender’s true meaning.

It is not:
“Surrender all to Christ, then you can get what you want—location, marriage, health, comfort, whatever it is for which you long.”

It is:
“Surrender all to Christ and very possibly not get what you want; very possibly lose all,
but get all you need: knowing Christ.
And He will be enough.”

But I see what I want, sometimes more than I see You, even though You’re not far.
My desires are not hidden from You, LORD,
But make them hidden in You, in all that You are.
So if You don’t grant me what I desire,
My delight will still be in You.

Because all I consider loss for the sake of knowing You.
But I don’t say that with a consuming rush of gleeful emotion.
I say it with trembling, and tears,
Because the cost is so high, and the road so low,
And my faith so small, and Your holy love so searing in my heart,
And Your words so alive,
It is overwhelming.

“Here am I. Send me,” is not shouted, but stammered by my lips,
The same You burn with hot coal to cleanse me,
Isaiah 6’s depiction of painful, holy grace becomes my reality as Christ’s blood washes me
From desires to not be like You, but to be You: Lord over my own life.

I am not worthy to follow You, to speak Your name as though You were truly mine.
So I pray You’d make me worthy of Your gospel.
Not my works in exchange for Your favor,
But humility before You who didn’t spare Your own Son,
but were pleased to crush Him whom You loved
So Your own humble, passionate love could be manifested,
the glory of Your grace reflected in those You choose, who once hated You.

You gave all. So You command all.

It has been granted to me to believe in Christ AND to suffer for Him before I enter into His glory.
May Your glory be the joy set before me as I endure this race,
As my Savior’s face was set like flint to do Your will,
Despising the shame, and enduring hostility from the hands of the sinners He came to save.

So now I’m saved from the only part of You that I deserved to know.
Instead of Your eternal wrath,
I taste Your grace forevermore.

Empty vanity surrounds me in a world of depravity,
So the same conclusion I reach as that of Ecclesiastes:

Everything is nothing compared to You,
So You command nothing less of everything,
be submitted to You.

Thankfully, everything of worth is found in You.