Dear Lord,
Today I surrender to You.
I will accept whatever You have allowed into my life.
If the challenges I face are from You,
I trust that You have Holy purpose in them.
If the challenges I face are not from You,
I trust that You have chosen to allow them even so.
No cry of my heart goes unnoticed to Your ears.
No tear on my cheek goes unnoticed to Your eyes.
Today I choose to trust that whatever difficulty I have found myself in the midst of –
none of it has taken You, O Lord, by surprise.
And though you mourn the brokenness in this world,
and are angered by the evil in it,
You, O Lord, are never defeated by it.
If this trial is not from you,
I trust that You have allowed it now so You can take it, redeem it,
and make such beauty come from it that never would have been otherwise.
…in this life or the next.
May my surrender be so complete that even in the midst of great pain,
I may see your even greater redemption at work,
and be ever grateful for the glory You create from it.
So grateful that even I would not wish it any different.
And Help me Lord to lay down all I should never have taken up
so I can receive all of what You have always wanted to give me.
Help me receive the life that is truly life.
Into Your hands I commit my spirit.
May my eyes see Your salvation.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Amen.
The featured image is (c) of Julie Jablonski and used with her gracious permission for Cultivating and The Cultivating Project.
Adam is a vagabond of the arts. He is an animator by training, a media specialist by vocation, a church arts project coordinator by choice and a writer by hobby. Though he “still hasn’t found what he’s looking for”, in his wandering through the arts he has found the firm conviction that God has been writing His story through our stories since the beginning, and He’s not done yet. Adam is also a contributor to the ministry “God Thru the Arts” and is slowly working at his own passion project “The Witness Cloud” – which explores the stories of those listed in Hebrews 11, and seeks to find the “True Myths” that also point to God through the human journey using the arts. Adam and his wife Sarah have 3 children and live in Northern Colorado. His artistic interests range from G.K. Chesterton to Looney Tunes. Follow Adam on Instagram here.
Adam R. Nettesheim
comments
“And Help me Lord to lay down all I should never have taken up
so I can receive all of what You have always wanted to give me.
Help me receive the life that is truly life.”
This is wonderful, Adam. I love that little phrase (from Timothy, i think?) about “life that is truly life”. That sticks with me too.
1 Timothy indeed Matthew! (Admittedly I couldn’t exactly remember and googled it.) 🙂
It’s hard to lay that stuff down especially when God doesn’t always reveal what He has for us to take up afterwards. Like the CS Lewis quote about kids playing in the mud because he can’t imagine a holiday at the sea side. Something like that.
Thanks for your kind reply!
Yes, this my prayer:
“And Help me Lord to lay down all I should never have taken up
so I can receive all of what You have always wanted to give me.”
I know this prayer too will be answered.
Thanks,
Thank you Denise!
Yes, and I wish it was a one time thing! But, for me, it can sometimes be day by day that I must relearn this.