Choose One Thing

I correlate surrender with the moment I was baptized at age nine.  I still remember the feeling of going under the water,  mindful it was my public statement of giving my life to Christ, a declaration that my life without Christ was put into a watery grave, and an act of complete surrender.  It was a significant moment, a declaration to myself and those around me, that I had entered a new life, resurrected and free to live the way God designed me to live.

There is power in surrender, an act of giving self to God.  The thing is . . . surrender marks new beginnings . . . giving fresh eyes of faith . . . opening the mind to  divine wisdom . . . giving a new strength to step into the unknown with trust.  Surrender opens the door to what more God has planned. 

Even so. It is easy to keep the stuff of life inside, letting problems, pressures, and plain old frustration invade our thoughts, attitudes, actions, and beliefs.  Surrender is to be practiced over and over.  I am the first to say surrender can seem too hard . . .  until . . . I surrender and experience the freedom that comes with it.

Consider.
Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1,2 explaining what He had come for:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come (Luke 4:18, 19).

Read the words Jesus declared again.  Write them down.  Take the words with you today.  Read them over and over.  Think on them. Let the words speak to you.  What do the words say to you today?  What do you need to be released and set free from today?

Surrender is the key to being set free. 

Choose one thing to surrender.
Choose the one thing which seems to always be on your mind, regardless of what else you are doing.
Choose the one thing that you just know would change your life, if, it was out of your life.
Choose the one thing that you desperately want but it just seems impossible for you.
Choose one thing to surrender . . . a  relationship . . . financial situation  . . . health issue . . . career . . . calling . . . crisis . . . event . . . whatever is weighing you down and give it to Christ.
Perhaps you think there is nothing to surrender.  There is.  Always. We live in a world of problems, pressures, and plain old frustration.
Ask yourself, What would my life be like if this was not an issue?  How would I think, behave, speak, and act without it? 
Determine how you would live free if the one thing that weighs you down would be gone. Practice living in that manner . . . the manner of surrender . . . seeing your life with fresh eyes of faith . . . responding with the divine wisdom of God . . . and taking steps of trust.

Take the one thing and surrender it day after day, until you know you are free. Declare the one thing specifically belongs to Christ.  Let the one thing go as if you are putting it under a watery grave.  Live without the one thing controlling or weighing you down.  Breathe, think, speak, and act without its presence in you.  

Each time the one thing seems to come at you . . . refuse to let it near you or to attack you . . . remember it is in the watery grave . . . you are living a resurrected life, free from whatever has weighed you down. 

The moment you wake up, all through the day, and, then, when you go to bed, declare your freedom and live in it. Receive what more God has for you as you surrender one thing after another to Him.

Learning to Kickstart the day surrendering one thing, declaring and living in freedom,
Kerrie

(written by Kerrie Carlisle Palmer © 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)