Benjamin Clark

Surrender’s message most likely came from things learned in my time with Teen Mania Ministries a decade ago (OH MY GOODNESS…that sounds so long).  One of the biggest recurring themes for me in my time there was that God’s ways are higher than mine and his plan doesn’t always agree with mine. And when it does not, I have the choice to either follow and obey, or to fail (aka: do what I want to do).

I think the enticing thing about doing what we want to do rather than what God wants us to do is that our way usually seems far easier.  And with the incorrect understanding of God and prosperity, I thought God’s will was revealed by whichever path seemed easier or more natural.  Clearly I had some unlearning to do.  Actually I’m still unlearning.  I often feel like I’m in elementary school (figuratively speaking) when it comes to trusting the path that God lays out…especially when it is not the path that seems more natural.

This is where surrender comes in.  It is the ultimate declaration that I truly believe in God’s love for me.  Essentially when we surrender, we say that we don’t understand this direction that God is taking us.  And for those who are new to this faith in God, we have to rely on merely a SENSE that we can trust in him. BUT…those of us who are mature in our faith know that he has ALWAYS brought us to a better place in life when we chose to trust in him.  In other words, as we get older and look back, we can tally the times we went our way and the times we went God’s way.  And we will see that EVERY time we went our way, we set ourselves back from the blessings God had in store.  And EVERY time we trusted God’s way, we eventually reaped a reward that was far beyond what we imagined.

See I actually do believe in prosperity.  But my understanding of God’s prosperity growing up was that, since I am a follower of God, his path would be the path of instant gratification. Because after all…he is a father who longs to give his children good gifts. Just to clarify, I’m not saying that this is what I was taught, merely it was my understanding. The unlearning came when I realized that God’s path is often the path of delayed gratification.  So at first unlearning required blind faith.  Just relying on this sense that I could trust him.  Eventually though…as I matured in my faith, I came to see that God’s track record was PERFECT!

I believe that IF (and that’s a big “IF”) we keep score (intentionally think about God’s faithfulness through the years), we will surely come to a point that we find perfect peace.  We can actually trust him with confidence!  He IS good all the time…even when his way seems long, dark, and just plain hard.