Lent - A Call to Surrender

Have you been struggling lately with a plan failing execution Or with a sickness that has worn you to bits? A job that you wish you could keep only if it paid you more Or a haunting memory that you wish was just a bad dream?

Well, I used to be quite the struggler too, until the day the Lord took me on a journey only to realize the futility of living through the pain of wanting. He said to me, 'Take away that restless wish and replace it with a 'trusting desire'. Commit your plan to me and I will pave the way.' It didn't seem very enticing to go all out and surrender everything that my life depended on. My plan, My job, My relationships, My decision! To hand 'all' of that over ? - Just Like That! 'No!' shouted a persistent voice at the back of my head. 'It's your life and you are are going the right way'. Well, I had heard that voice before, the voice that gave me the heels to walk higher and the pride to talk bigger. It was just then, that I realized, how many times it had let me down before - for all that it was, was an empty ego. I wasn't certain of that voice anymore. It had been causing a restlessness in my thoughts and actions and therefore much doubt. Doubt, and therefore much fear. Fear, that was the hollow absence of Faith. Faith, the very 'trusting desire' that the Lord was talking about. I had found that vacuum that I was hasting to and from, back and forth, in a vicious circle of relentless madness.

And then I was conscious that I had no 'real' plan. My actions were an outcome of superficial understanding that lacked the depth of a firm foundation, one that I should have laid down long before. The Lord helped me realize my dream and my desire - 'To worship Him in everything that I do' - so that sickness become strength, a bad memory a forgiven lesson and that every plan branch out in accordance with the dream. A dream, that is blessed in surrender.

There are mighty returns to investing in time spent with God. For it was in the wilderness that Jesus found himself closest to the Father, so it is with us. What better time than this season of Lent to review our plans with Him and renew our lives? He is waiting for us to offer to Him our restless wishes, that He may make of them a dream so beautiful, we could never see unless we let Him show us.