Total Surrender

I just came back from a Women's Conference in Tennessee.  It was great to get away with other women and be "girls" for a little while.

Besides going to the conference--which I'll talk about in a minute--we also found some great shopping spots and some fabulous eating.  I think Sheila beat us all in the shopping department overall, but I KNOW that Jude Owens won the contest for racking up the cutest baby clothes from Carter's.  (Jude is the newest member to the Owen's family, our Music/Youth Minister at church.)

Now--to the conference.  The topic for the weekend was Total Surrender. 

Surrendering our will, our life, our desires, our plans, our mind, our Everything--to God.

This is NOT easy for me because by nature--I am a Planner and a Doer.

But the Beauty of Total Surrender is this--When I surrender everything to God--He takes over and I live the life that He has planned instead of the life that I have planned.

His plan that is perfect for my life.

It sounds so simple--but it is NOT because we were created with free will.  Meaning--that we have the ability to make choices in our lives.  We always have the choice to choose our way instead of God's. 

God--the Creator of this World that we call home--could have made this very easy by just giving us this master plan and then telling us to follow it.  But He didn't.

Instead He wants us to seek after Him by reading His word, to talk to Him in prayer, to listen for His voice, to pursue His will and to obey His commands.

This total surrendering requires us to be in "action".

Sometimes this "action" is one of being still and waiting.  Seems like an oxymoron doesn't it?  But, nonetheless, that is where He sometimes takes us.

Right now, I am struggling with a couple of things that have been on my heart.  I am trying to surrender them to God--but then I find myself--trying to figure out how to "handle" these issues. Ugh!

Ultimately--we have to get to the place that we realize that surrendering=Freedom.  Freedom from the burden of figuring things out.  If we are surrendered to God's will, then we are free to live for Him!