A Word on Disappointment and Surrender

           2020 has been a year of experiencing new things, encountering new decisions, and learning new lessons. I use the word new because the time we are in has been unprecedented in our lifetime, and there has been many new exciting things experienced, healthy decisions made, and positive lessons learned in this year. Praise the Lord! He never wastes a moment with us! However, I know this year has also been one filled with painful things experienced, difficult decisions made, and challenging lessons learned as well. This year has not been going as anyone planned and many have experienced big disappointments. In the past season of encountering disappointment in my life, the Lord was tender and gentle in helping me steward my heart and keep my spirit free from bitterness. He allowed me to feel the disappointment, the confusion, and the hurt that came with the season, but He reminded me that He will never leave me there. It was a process of learning the deeper things of the Lord and His nature, recognizing that disappointment is a real thing, and allowing Him to comfort and speak to me through blur of things I may never understand on this side of eternity. He has taught me to trust Him not just up to the point where my understanding ends, but to walk by faith even when all my understanding is lost. I watched Him stay the same even while my circumstances were ever changing.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  {James 1:17}

           Amidst the disappointment, I felt the Lord teaching me and He is continuing to teach me about surrender. In a world and a time when many people feel entitled to make their own decisions, be free from authority, and take things into their own hands, surrender is something people try to avoid and resist at all costs. As believers and members of the Kingdom of God, we aren't called to that right in our life with Him. This is not to say, we as believers are called to lay down and just submit to the world's way of doing things. Not at all! We are called to rise up and fight to bring the Kingdom of heaven on earth; this is our assignment as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. In order to do this though, we must first submit to the authority of Jesus in our lives. It is the laying down of our rights, the laying down of our lives, the laying down of our comfort that breaks off the spirit of entitlement and ushers us into the fullness of the crucified life with Christ. Because I have been crucified with Him, because I have surrendered my life fully to Him, my life is not my own.

Galatians 2:20 
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." 

SUR￪REN￪DER
verb
cease resistance to an opponent and submit to their authority.
to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand.

           Surrender is not giving up hope. Surrender is giving up the hope you have in what you can do on your own. It is allowing the hope of what God can do in and through you to take precedence. Surrender is having the understanding that His plans are bigger, His thoughts are higher, and His ways are better. Surrendering to Him brings great joy. It is the place we were meant to be. It is the way we were meant to live. Before Eve took the fruit and decided to take her life into her own hands, surrender and full reliance on God was our destiny and will always be God's perfect plan for us.

But so is free will. God has given us free will because He wants us to choose Him. He wants us to choose surrender, He will never force it upon us. He wants us to choose to give up our lives for His glory and enter into true living with Him.


Luke 9:23-27
"Jesus said to all of his followers, "If you truly desire to be my disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace my cross as your own, and surrender to my ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for my glory, you will embark on a discovery of more and more of true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep. Even if you gained all the wealth and power of this world, everything it could offer you, yet lost your soul in the process, what good is it?""

           Jesus calls us to surrender to His ways in our lives and live for His glory. We must humble ourselves and submit to God's authority in every thing we do. Sometimes the things that happen in our lives are hard and really hurt, but this is when we must yield to His power and control and allow Him to care for our hearts in the process. He is trustworthy not just of our lives, but of our hearts too. He doesn't just want our lives laid down; He wants us to allow Him into the deepest parts of our hearts. He wants our love, our vulnerability, and our emotions. He wants all of us and that is good news!! He wants us even in our most difficult moments. He wants to laugh with us, weep with us, and be the One we come to with every emotion in between. He is a good, good Father and to surrender to Him is life's greatest challenge, yet life's greatest joy.

I surrender my life.
I surrender my right to understand. 

I surrender because I trust you.
I surrender because I believe You are bigger than my understanding.
I surrender because You give me peace that surpasses my understanding.
I surrender because I know who You are. 
I surrender because I know Your Word is true.
I surrender because I know Your plans for me are better.
I surrender because I believe You never give less, You always give more.
I surrender because I want to know You more. 
I surrender because I live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
I surrender because You have never left me or forsaken me.
I surrender because I want to be Your sent one. 
I surrender because I want to be used to bring Your Kingdom on the earth.
I surrender because You are a good Abba.
I surrender because I have nothing apart from You.

           Below is a heart psalm I wrote a few months ago as I was processing disappointment with the Lord. This is just a free flow of my thoughts as I talked to the Lord during that time, and it was super helpful to write this out and put my thoughts to words. I would highly recommend trying it as a new way to connect with Him and express your heart to Him! It came from a place of realizing through my disappointing circumstances, I had to let go of the desire to understand why these things happened and turn my focus to seeking to understand Him in a deeper way. He led me to pursue Him instead of trying to understand the who, what, and why of my disappointment. And I can say with full confidence, this was a much more fulfilling and life-giving pursuit. I pray this encourages some of you through the raw emotions of disappointment and shows that even through disappointment, the Lord can bring greater intimacy. With disappointment, He seeks to bring you from the shallow waters into the immeasurably more love, comfort, and joy of knowing Him and into the deep waters of who He is as Comforter, Father, and Friend.

{A Heart Psalm}

Walk by faith, not by sight
The words You spoke at the start of 2020.
The words I am clinging to to stay hopeful in this season.
I am seeing that this life has real and raw disappointment;
But I am seeing disappointment paves a way for real and raw moments with You.
Disappointment is a doorway to knowing You more.
I'll choose to walk through it to get to You again and again.

I am coming to know not just the perfection You are,
But the humanness You experienced on the earth.
I am coming to understand my choice is to pursue You;
It is a pursuit I will always come back to
Even in the parts of life I don't think I'll ever understand on this side of eternity.
When my heart wants to run far away,
Your love captivates me and brings me closer still.

Surrender.
It means giving up on my own plans and ceasing to resist Your power in my life.
I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on You.
I am coming to know You more Jesus;
Your friendship,
Your closeness,
Your voice.

Persevere.
Walk in true humility.
It is well oh my soul even when all seems lost.
It is well oh my soul even when I feel lost.
I heard You say, "You're not back to the start, you're back to My heart."
I heard You say, "I want your dreams fulfilled too."
I heard You say, "I am here, and I will always be here."

It is hard to know how to move on when disappointment follows disappointment.
But Jesus You are the One I will always come back to.
I have felt You come so close.
I have known Your love that comforts.
I have known Your love not in the shallows, but in the depths.
It comes with me in my deepest despair and disappointment.
I really cannot escape Your love.

Your faithfulness that is not based on how things work out,
Faithfulness based on who You are and who You will always be.
I know You are worthy of my trust and my heart.
Our bond is greater than any I have ever known.
We are one, I cannot separate myself from You.
I feel the roots of faith grow deeper still.
This is how I walk by faith, and not by sight.