SURRENDER is a word that many people despise, but I want to encourage you to embrace it. Here’s why: surrender is already happening in all of our lives. The only question is this: Will we surrender our lives to God or to something less than God?

Mark 8:34-37 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

It’s okay to lose control of your life, if you lose it into the hands of the God who can save it. I hate the feeling of losing control. I intellectually knew that control was an illusion, but I still believed I could make certain things happen if I did the right thing. This long season we’ve been in has opened my eyes that I really can’t control much of anything or anyone. I can’t make people do what I wished they would do. I can’t end this pandemic or its effects. I can’t even schedule the next Sunday that all of us can be at Epic together.

When we feel a loss of control, there are two options we tend to choose: we either try to tighten our grip on everything in our lives or we just give up in despair. But what if we aren’t losing control to some black hole in the universe? What if we are actually losing control to the God who controls the universe? And what if that God has good plans for us? And what if that God has all authority and He uses that authority to work everything ultimately for our good?

Over the past year, I’ve had to learn the practice of surrender over and over - in fact, I’m still learning it. The question I’ve had to wrestle with constantly is this one: Do I really believe that my life and my eternity are in God’s good hands? While we might have to grapple with this question daily, it is my hope and prayer that we will be convinced that our lives are in God’s good hands.

Embracing Surrender Alongside of You,

Ben