The Life of Surrender

Reading the Bible the entire way through has been a routine for Peter and me the last three years. There is not a single thing that has changed our lives as much as reading through Scripture as a whole.

God’s Word says this:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Reading the Bible will change us. It transforms us and shapes us to be more like Christ.

Here are a few reasons that you should read the Bible through every year:

1.) Reading Scripture all the way through in one year provides a plan. I am always tempted to read my favorite books of the Bible or return to my favorite verses but when we have a set plan to read through God’s Word, you don’t have to guess what will be in your quiet time that day. The guess work is done for you. It will also help you to circle back to those books that you don’t always enjoy. The entirety of God’s Word should be consumed by us, not just what we want to read.

2.) God speaks to us through Scripture. One way that God has chosen to communicate and commune with us is through His Word. When we are meditating on God’s Word daily, He reveals things to us in a unique and personal way. Many times things will jump off the page and right into our hearts. It helps us to have a deeper relationship with our Creator.

3.) It shows us who we are in relation to God and it teaches us much about God’s character and love for us. One of the biggest things I have learned by reading scripture is that God is a holy, just, and loving father. I have also learned that I am a sinner who deserves hell. The most fantastic news is that my loving father has created a way for me to be with Him in eternity instead of giving me what I deserve. When we read through scripture we see who God is and we see how far we come short of His glory and how loving He is to create a way back to Him.

4.) It helps us sin less. Back to the Bible research shows that someone who engages scripture 4 or more times a week looks radically different from the life of someone who does not. I’d encourage you to click on the link and explore some of those research findings. God’s Word really does change and transform us.

We have been reading The Bible all the way through for three years now. We have done this with help from many different resources and I would like to share some of these here with you. This is not an exhaustive list but they truly have been helpful to us in getting started and understanding God’s Word.

1.) This sermon by David Platt outlines how we can approach God’s Word. It is a good starting point for reading the Bible.

2.) The Bible Project  This website has so many helpful videos to understanding the Bible. They are about 10 minutes in length and they give an outline of each book of the Bible. We watched these videos this year with the Read Scripture App. It was nice to get an overview of each book of the Bible and general themes of the Bible. It was really well done.

3.) David Platt also has a resource called Secret Church that they put on every year. The first three years focused on intense study of God’s Word and were very helpful to us when going through Scripture.

Secret Church: Survey of the Old Testament

Secret Church: Survey of the New Testament

Secret Church: How to Study the Bible

4.) You Version Bible Reading Plans

You Version App has many different plans to choose from. You can decide how you want to read the Bible in a year.

5.) Well Watered Women Reading Resources

Well Watered Women has a great resources page for help with reading the Bible. You can sign up for an e-mail that has many apps and helpful tools for studying God’s Word.

6.) Right Now Media Book Studies- Right Now Media has so many Bible studies to choose from. Peter and I enjoyed going through different books of the Bible with different pastors on Right Now Media.

Other Resources

1.) The Biggest Story by Kevin Deyoung is a children’s book that tells the Bible in story form. It shows how the Bible is not a disjoint book but one that has one big story. I would highly recommend it for children and adults!

2.) Another way you can get your feet wet in the Bible is to read a Proverb one for each day of a month. There are 31 Proverbs and some months have 31 days in them.

However you feel would best work for you I pray that you would get into God’s Word this year and read it in it’s entirety. I pray that 2020 would be the year that your life is transformed by God through His Word and you see Him more clearly. I know that we can always think of excuses like I am too busy, I am too old to get started, I may not understand it all, etc. but all of those excuses are going to hold you back from unlocking what God has in store for you. It is never too late to get started and we are never going to be Bible experts because our finite minds can’t comprehend all of God, but we should be learning as much as we can and allowing God to transform our lives! Let 2020 be the year that you read through God’s Word.

When I imagine a life of faithfulness to God, I tend to think that I should have it all together. I would be the most loving mother and wife and on the rare occasion that my children needed to be disciplined, I would know exactly what to do every time. I imagine that I would never have to rewash clothes because I forgot them in the washing machine overnight and my house would always be clean and no spills would happen on a floor that was just mopped that day. I imagine that a life of faithfulness to God feels like all is right in the world and I can climb into bed for a good night’s rest with fresh sheets on the bed.

The problem with this life I imagine is that it isn’t actually me being faithful to God. The life I imagine is a life where I believe that I don’t need God. The life I imagine is a life where I think I have everything under control, without God. That is not what being faithful to God looks like. Jesus told us that in this life we will have trouble (John 16:33). Part of why we have trouble in this life so that we can understand that we can’t do anything without God. A life lived in faithfulness to God should feel like we have no idea what we are doing. It should feel out of control and messy. It should feel that way because we are sinners living in a world of sin. It is messy. It is a sinful world.

This passage out of Luke expresses it well:

Luke 18:9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told them this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. he would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

What I see in this passage is the Pharisee giving a list of things that he does well. Unfortunately, that looks pretty similar to how I imagine a life of faithfulness should be like. I imagine that a life of faithfulness is about what I do well. Let’s look at the tax collector. He wouldn’t even look up to heaven. He knew his place in relation to God. True faithfulness to God looks like humility. It looks like giving God the credit for the things we do well and it looks like relying on Him for everything that we need.

Faithfulness looks like starting our days on our knees admitting to God that we are incapable of going through this life without Him. We aren’t supposed to spend our lives building our resumes. We are supposed to spend our lives giving glory to God. It gives glory to God when we faithfully discipline our children even when we don’t know what we are doing. We give glory to God when we continue to mop the floor when spill after spill of this life happen. We give glory to God when instead of keeping count of all the things we do for our families, we ask for God’s help and continue to give more and more. We give glory to God when we see the mess around us and ask God how we can serve faithfully even when it doesn’t feel good.

This passage out of Rachel Jankovic’s book You Who summarizes it well:

“Years ago, when my parent’s purchased some land, Dad bought a field and brush mower. It was huge and self-powered. It could mow over sapling three inches thick. It was a beast. And when you mowed with it, you felt yourself jogging along behind a thing that was well out of control as you did your noble best not to mow down the orchard. I have thought of this many times as an example of what faithfulness feels like. It feels like out of control. It feels like thanking God breathlessly for things that you think were a bad idea. It feels like struggling to keep up and being sure that you aren’t doing a great job. It feels like not seeing the vision for what you are doing. And yet, whenever you look over your shoulder, where you expect to see the devastation of your poorly executed job, what you see instead is a beautiful garden growing. Faithfulness does not feel like what it is accomplishing.”

Here are four ways to remain faithful:

Surrender 

We need to remember who we are in relation to God. We are sinful human beings and God is the powerful creator of the universe. God does not sin. God knows everything and is infallible. That is not the case with us. We should not ever think that we know better than God. We need to surrender all of our plans to God and know that He will carry them out for our good and for His glory.

Repent

Whenever we find ourselves building our own resumes and thinking we can live this life on our own, we need to turn back and ask God to forgive us for our pride and misguided ideas. The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus is for everyone. It doesn’t matter what family you are born into, what sins you have committed, or where you were born on this planet, if you will humble yourself and repent of your sins, they will be forgiven. Jesus is not for those who can look good on this earth, Jesus is for everyone. Jesus will always accept anyone who comes to Him with a humble heart and repents of their sins.

Pray

I would love to say that all of my days begin on my knees asking God to help me through each day, but I can’t. The days that do begin like this are days where I know that I am in alignment with God and His plan for my life. They are days that I hope will continue to increase. Prayer has a way of changing us. God isn’t waiting impatiently in Heaven for us to pray to Him. God uses prayer as a gift to us. We are gifted with the ability to talk to the Creator and that will change us from the inside out. Prayer is a gift to us and we should most definitely be using it.

Rest in God’s Love and Plan

The final way to live faithfully is to rest in God. This doesn’t mean taking a day off of work or going on a vacation, it means while we are in the thick of our days we can know that God has a plan for our lives. We can know that He has a plan and He is taking care of us. We don’t have to have anxiety and fear because we are not in charge, God is. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)

Little by little, God is changing us. He is sanctifying us day by day and the process doesn’t always feel good. We may think we are on the wrong track because things are feeling unpleasant, but God’s plan won’t always feel pleasant. When we surrender to Him, we have freedom. I pray that we will all continue to be faithful until the end, even when it doesn’t feel good.

I have been noticing recently how much my stuff can have a negative effect on my life.  The minimalism movement is big right now and it boasts about the benefits of getting rid of stuff and carrying a lighter load. I like the idea of purging everything and only having the basics because less stuff is easier to manage. I am kind of a sentimentalist and will hold onto everything if I have a positive memory or it evokes a positive emotion in me. My house is generally more cluttered and it is often a distraction to me and harder to work in.

Aside from the secular view of minimalism and the positive benefits that can come from purging my junk, I can see how holding onto stuff tears me away from my Creator. I get so busy and distracted shuffling my stuff that I forget that I am here to glorify God.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24

I see the effects of stuff in my children’s lives as well. They are constantly wanting to get little trinkets and toys and fill up their rooms with them. They enjoy these things for the same reason that I enjoy my stuff. Many times they will have a positive memory or someone they love gave it to them. The problem is that these little trinkets are not built to last. They break very easily or get lost easily. There are so many times when they come back from somewhere and there are tears because they can’t find their little toy or the toy broke five minutes after they received it. Even if the toy isn’t lost or broken, the luster wears off all too soon and then they are left searching for the next thing to fill them up.

I will often think that collecting this stuff will satisfy me and it just doesn’t. I am placing my hope in the wrong thing. I am placing my hope in stuff. When I read through the Old Testament and see people worshiping something made by man’s hands, I am quick to scoff at them and think they are so silly. If I could take a step back and look at today, that is exactly what all the stuff I am filling up my life with is. The stuff in my life is an idol just as much as a golden calf is. No, I am not necessarily bowing down and worshiping it; but I am worshiping it. I am putting hope, trust, and happiness in an object that will not satisfy.

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.” -Johnathan Edwards

How much time I waste trying to fill myself up with things of this earth that ultimately will not satisfy. Satan has a strong foothold on many of us because he wants us to be distracted from serving our true purpose which is to glorify our Creator and to spread the gospel message to the ends of the earth. We should be fervently praying, soaking in God’s Word, and working to disciple others.

“Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob, you have not wearied yourself for me, O Israel.” Isaiah 43:22

The Solution

When I begin to recognize that I am idolizing stuff in my life, what should I do?

1.) Repent– As soon as I recognize that I am practicing idolatry with my stuff I can repent and ask God to forgive me.

2.) Prayer– I need to ask God to help me to set my mind on things that are above and not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:2)

3.) Soak in God’s Word– The more we read God’s Word, the more we understand His love for us and His plan for our lives. His plan is not to collect as much stuff as we can, His plan is to glorify Him and spread His Word.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”” Matthew 28:18-20

4.) Feeling true happiness that comes from God rather than false happiness that comes from the world. – God’s happiness is a peace that lasts and is rooted in Him no matter what our circumstances are. Happiness from the world is fleeting and fickle and is highly dependent on our current circumstances. The more we glorify God with our lives, the more joy we will feel in Him.

Lord,

I pray that you would help me to spend my life worshiping and glorifying you. I pray that you would keep my eyes fixed on you and your great commission. I pray that the joy I receive from following you would be evident and will pour out to encourage others.

Amen

We are in the month of love! This month usually centers around romantic love (which is also important to let my husband know how much I love him) but we are trying to focus on loving others in general this month. Maybe it’s because we are in the middle of winter but it seems like we have been breaking up more fights between siblings recently. I have also felt God convicting me that maybe my kids are fighting with each other and talking lowly about others because they see this behavior in me.

The Sunday school lesson we taught last week from this book discusses the rules that we receive in the first five books of the Bible. There are a total of 613 rules in the first five books of the old testament. It is pretty hard to remember that many commands so we can basically boil everything down to two commands:

1.) Love God

2.) Love Others

Everything else would fall under either of these two categories.

Not only was this something I think the kids desperately needed to hear, but it was something I desperately needed to hear. We have been working through arguments and trying to build some empathy in the kids and God is showing me through this process just how much I think of myself. I can ride a pretty high horse and I can think I am better than others when no one is good, not even one.  (Romans 3:10-12)

In my BSF class we have been studying David’s life. In 2 Samuel 8:2, David has just defeated the Moabites and he does something interesting: “And he defeated Moab and he measured them with a line, making them lie down on the ground. Two lines he measured to be put to death, and one full line to be spared. And the Moabites became servants to David and brought tribute.”  My BSF Notes say this about that verse: “David’s actions against the Moabites may seem cruel
and arbitrary, but perhaps they are meant to give us a picture of Gods’s grace. Two-thirds of the Moabites were killed. Yet, God’s mercy for His enemies is also shown. One-third of them were spared. The seemingly random selection offers truth about the justice of God’s wrath against His enemies. All people are born sinners, enemies of God. None is more deserving of being spared the due penalty of sin – death – than any other. No efforts, intentions or works can earn mercy or salvation from God. Yet, God chooses to save some. At his own expense, God saves sinners from their sin for a new life that serves as a living witness to both the fierce might and great grace of God.”

We all deserve God’s judgement. It is a very sinful thought to think that I deserve God’s judgement less than someone else. That is a lie. I don’t want to make the mistake in thinking that I am more holy than anyone else. There is only one who that is true of.

Sensing that our family could use some work in this area, we have challenged ourselves to memorize 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. We have also committed to identifying whenever we are thinking or speaking negatively of someone else and stopping in our tracks.

Habits in our lives can be hard to break so we know that going to God for prayer in this area is essential. I have already noticed a difference in my attitude towards others.

Every year I start to wonder if God is going to give me another word for the year. This year was no different. I was starting to doubt if there would be a word and then it hit me. 2018 was a pretty busy year and it seems like we are limping into 2019. Because we have been so busy I felt like I wasn’t always focused on how I could help others. I felt God telling me that I need to be a good steward of what He has given me. I thought stewardship would be the perfect word for 2019.

Here is how I am hoping it will look:

Relationships-

I want to shepherd my children’s hearts. I want to disciple them and most of all pray for them. I want to be a good wife to Peter and cover him in prayer as well. I want to be a better friend than what I have been. I want to be the friend that contacts people and asks them how they are doing. I am terrible about that right now. I want to have more meaningful conversations and I want people to see Jesus in me.

Health-

God has given me one body and I have not been taking care of it very well. I would like to exercise more and eat less processed foods and more foods that were created by God naturally. I want to encourage my kids to exercise and eat healthy as well and take care of their bodies. Also, I want to learn more creative ways of serving vegetables and get out of my green bean box.

Money-

Money is the word I think of most when I think of being a good steward. I don’t want our family to be overindulgent but to give freely of what has been given to us. Kristen Welch talks about things being a test or blessing in her book Raising World Changers in a Changing World. I want our family to consider the gifts that have been given to us and find out how we can use our possessions to bless others.

Mindfulness-

One of the best ways I can be a good steward is to look for ways to bless others. When I am on social media I can be thinking about who I can pray for and who I can encourage.  I can put time limits and only check social media once a day instead of mindlessly scrolling throughout the day. I can be present with my family and friends. I can get up in the morning and ask God what He wants me to do that day instead of getting bogged down in my own routine.

I want to spend 2019 giving away the grace that God has shown me.

My word of the year for 2018 was prayer.  I really could not have anticipated how much closer to God it brought me. I also felt that it increased my faith. By God’s grace I now see prayer in a completely different light than I did the previous year.

Here are the two takeaways I have for the year:

1.) Prayer is not for God, it is for us.

Throughout 2018  I started to realize how big of a lifeline prayer is.  I have come to the understanding that God is infinitely holy and powerful and I can’t do anything without His help. I also saw that God gives us the strength we need when we step out in faith and are being obedient to Him. When I pray before doing things, God shows up in my life in a more real way than He ever has before.  Suddenly my life is God’s and I want to pray everyday and make the day His and not mine!

Valerie Woerner, the creator of my prayer journal, said something that has resonated with me. I don’t have a direct quote because it was on Instastories, but she talked about how God is not waiting for us to pray to Him and help Him. He gives us prayer for us. He is giving us direct access to Him! Wow! When I step back and think about the power that I have access to it amazes me. The God that created everything on earth and has the power to make anything he wants happen has allowed me to talk directly to Him. That is amazing! If He has given me this amazing gift, I had better be using it!

Here are some quotes that helped solidify this idea in my mind:

“To not pray is to silently declare that you have more power over your situation than Jesus does.” -Jared Lopes from the Dad Tired Podcast

“Prayerlessness is pride.” -David Platt

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:5

2.) The more I pray, the more I want to pray

This year it seemed that after I understood that God gives me access to himself when I pray, I have prayed more than I ever have before. When I see that God shows up in my life and gives me grace upon grace upon grace, it makes me want to pray all the more! I am so thankful that we have a Savior who cares about us and offers us access to himself.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still the temptation to sleep in and not pray in the mornings and there is the temptation to try to fix things in my own strength. I still give in to those temptations plenty, but I am more likely to turn to God in prayer and understand how powerless I am. This makes me turn to God more than I ever have before.

It has been a good year. I feel closer to God than I ever have before. I am looking forward to 2019 and our new word of the year. I know we will still be turning to God in prayer throughout the new year.

The Bible tells of some of the father’s of the faith setting up stones to remember miraculous things that God did for them.  Jacob, Moses, and Joshua all set up stones to remember God’s great works.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” 1 Samuel 7:12

Samuel used this Ebenezer to remember that God helped them defeat the Philistines. I like the idea of an Ebenezer. I think having something to remember what God has done in our lives helps us to keep our minds on Him instead of on the earthly things in front of us.

The idea of an Ebenezer even made it into the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Here there by Thy great help I’ve come
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home

I have heard the idea of preaching the gospel to ourselves daily. This is a way to remember and give ourselves proper perspective in our daily lives about what Jesus did for us. It can be hard to look past what is right in front of us to see what Jesus’s work on the cross did for us. I think when we set up Ebenezers in our lives, we can better remember what God has done for us in the past and that He is still here with us in the present.

David is a perfect example of this in the Psalms. He pours his heart out to God and tells God about the circumstances right in front of him. Then he starts telling of all the times God has been there for him.

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.

 The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.

Psalm 10:12-18

We recently put up our Christmas tree and I couldn’t help but think of the idea of an Ebenzer as we were doing it. My favorite Christmas decoration by far is the tree. The reason for that is because it is like taking a walk down memory lane every year. We have bought an ornament every year signifying what that year meant for our family and our lives as a couple. We have ornaments from our year of dating; all of our children’s first Christmases; when we bought our house; the year we read The Bible all the way through as a couple; etc.  When I look at that tree I am reminded of where we have been. I am reminded of God’s faithfulness and His grace.  We have grown so much since we bought that first ornament the year we were dating. It is the bunny couple from Bambi and it says, “Twitterpated,” a favorite for sure!  I know that God’s grace is what has brought us to this place and it is His grace that will lead us in the future.

What about you? What Ebenezers do you have in your life? How do you remember God’s faithfulness and grace?