soulscape

On Sunday, after Mosaic’s morning gathering on the Westside, a group of us were talking and were joined by a woman named Evette. It was about 12:30 and a few of us men were just chitchatting as we were making our way out to lunch. What was just casual banter turned serious when Evette joined us and started talking about some of the amazing things that had been happening in her life.

I can’t really reveal her stories here, since they’re not mine to reveal, but they concerned just the way God had been arranging some things in her life, completely, in a way, turning her life upside down, while at the same time pointing her toward an amazing future.

Three hours later, our group was finally ready to move on. It was three hours of some of the meatiest spiritual discussion I’ve been part of in a while. I went with two of the guys, Sean and Rob, to have a late lunch and we ended up talking for a couple more hours.

One of the themes that Evette hit was the idea of surrender. Just complete surrender of your life, letting God take the reins. Indeed, the stories that were told could not have happened unless Evette had been ready to surrender herself to what God wanted to do, and if she wasn’t preparing herself constantly with prayer.

It was a great reminder for myself, as for a long time now I’ve been fairly independent, stubborn, and often rebellious. For someone as hard-headed as myself, it takes years of trying to do it my way and failing to finally get the picture.

Tonight, this theme was hammered home as I flipped through the book of Proverbs. I happened upon Proverbs 16, which begins like this:

“We humans make plans, but the Lord has the final word. We may think we know what is right, but the Lord is the judge of our motives. Share your plans with the Lord, and you will succeed.”

This hit the nail on the head for me. I know what it’s like to constantly make my own plans and then stumble around in the dark. To make plans and see that they take me into dead ends. To strike out on my own and then wonder later, “What was I thinking?”

There’s a lot of bad connotations that come with the word surrender. But as the Word also says, wisdom is all about realizing how little you know. And if you are surrendering yourself to God, that, I am discovering, may be the wisest thing us humans can ever learn to do.