Surrender

Recently, a group of us guys from the young adults group have been getting together to go through the book Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. The book has been convicting for me, and even though we’re only two chapters in, it has already challenged me in several different ways.

For many years, I found myself searching for purpose and true fulfillment in this life. It’s crazy to say that after growing up in church, right? You’d think that growing up in church and around all the “church people” would naturally teach you what it means to be fulfilled in Christ. At least, that’s what I thought.

The truth is, I had no idea what it meant to fully surrender my life to Him. I viewed God as my Savior, but I only called on Him when I needed something—which was pretty often. Because of that, I would have told you I had a good relationship with God, but in reality, I was only seeking Him to fulfill what I wanted. That mindset led me to constantly search for fulfillment elsewhere. Looking back, I can clearly see that I wasn’t surrendered to Him because once I found those other things, I forgot all about Him.

Long story short, I have learned what it truly means to surrender, and it’s something I have to work on every single day. To bring this back to the book, there are still areas of my life that I’m learning to surrender to Him. It’s teaching not only me, but I believe all of us in this group, to identify the areas where we’ve allowed chaos to distract us from what truly matters. Instead, we’re learning to create space for solitude with the Lord.

Fulfillment can look different in each of our lives, especially for us men. We often feel like we have to be so many different things that we forget our most important identity—to simply be a child of God.

“As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man” (Proverbs 27:19).