Why Can't I Surrender?

This is Day 7 of my 40 day Lenten Blog.

I try to surrender to God, I really do. I recognize that my life is not my own and that I was bought at a price (1 Cor. 19-20)--the price of Christ's own blood. I realize that if I want to belong to Jesus I must take up my cross daily and follow Him. (Luke 9:23). Yet there is one aspect of my life where I simply cannot surrender. I'm not going to say what it is because 1) many readers will disagree that I even need to give this over to God and I don't want a bunch comments asserting that, and 2) for purposes of this post it really doesn't matter. What matters is that I am unwilling to turn this over to God.

The reason I am unwilling to surrender this aspect of my life to God, to hold up my hands and say "ok Lord, You got this," is my lack of faith and my unwillingness to allow His will be done. I realize this. But in my faithlessness, my selfishness and my great desire to have control over this one particular aspect, I refuse to bend.

I want to surrender, I really do. But still I do not. "Now if I do what I do not want to do it is no longer I who do it, but sin living in me that does it." (Rom. 7:20). So I am sinning when I do not surrender. I know this, but I still do not surrender. Why? Because I am weak and broken and faithless. For all my desire to trust in Jesus--as I wrote yesterday--the truth is I don't have the faith of a mustard seed.

Today's prayer:

Lord, please help me to surrender to You. Please help me to trust in You completely, so that I may do Your will and not my own. I realize that my will is broken and sinful and Your will is perfect and beautiful. Help me to give up my own selfishness and surrender to Your will every day. I cannot do it alone. Amen.

R.C. VanLandingham is the author of the Christian fantasy novel Peter Puckett & The Amulet of Eternity. He lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and three wonderful boys.