Faith. Women. Empowerment.

I have an idea of what it will look like on the day I meet my maker. Well, atleast I think I do anyways—Can any of us honestly imagine that day?

One thing is certain, I do not want that meeting to be the kind where my Heavenly Father looks at me and says ”My child, see what could have been had you let my will be done in your life, rather than your own.” —It’s my biggest fear, and shouldn’t it be for all of us?

How many lives could we touch?

What quality of life could be had if we allowed ourselves to surrender?

Jesus said “Anyone who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because of me will find it. Matthew 10:39”

He is very clear on this point. Take up His cross, Live a life unabandoned with complete surrender + faith—Seek Him with all of your heart+soul + mind, —Matthew 22:37.

He asks us to trust in him…and yet, that is terrifying to our earthly minds.

Surrender: to yield oneself up to another; to give over something; to relinquish control to someone or something else.

He asks us to lay down our lives, our plans, our expectations of what the future holds for us—so that we may find our lives, discover our God given purpose and be exactly who and where He wants us to be.

I am 100% guilty of professing how badly I want to live a life unabandoned and free of anxiety for the future. To spend my days in arms of grace+promise, the arms that I constantly speak of to others but I myself can never fully relinquish into.

Friends—I am TIRED of being my biggest hypocrite.

And on that same note,  I.GET.IT.

I over think 100% of every situation I encounter.

I imagine the worse case senario FIRST in all of my plans.

And I am that Christian who shakes her head and says

“God, I thought this was the plan?!” 

“SO, now I need a plan B, for my plan B?”

“When will I know what I’m suppose to do with my life?”

In all of these questions to my Heavenly Father I realize, I am solely focused on one person— Me. Myself. Bobbysue.

God asks us to SEEK Him and then we will find our God given purpose, but how can we seek Him when we are focused on what WE want. I am focused on what BOBBYSUE wants.

God asks us to SURRENDER to him. Our anxiety, our mess, our fears, our pain, our pride. HIM in exchange for US. He carried it on the cross and he gave us our FREEDOM—He asks that we surrender our lives to Him so that he can show us the plan he has always had in store. We cannot fully surrender our lives and then continue to worry about the future, about the money, about the opportunities or lack their of, about the impossible— Jesus said “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible! Matthew 19:26”

He asks us to TRUST him and he WILL take care of the rest. We trust that God will make a path in a season where it appears there isn’t one to be made, and yet we continue to fret over the season, questioning God on his ability to “come through” for us.  “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.—Joshua 1:9” 

I have proclaimed to live a life of surrender and the truth is, I haven’t even cracked a chip in the wall I hold between myself and my Father. Don’t get me wrong. I am very open with Him on many levels. However, the wall that I have built with burden and failure holding the foundation, is filled with fear of the future, fear of— How will I pay the bills? What if people judge me for this? What if I can’t do this God?

I finally found, not quickly enough—I have to learn the art of Surrender. I must. It is essential to my relationship with God.

Because living a life of fake surrender is NO longer an option for me.

I want a heart like David>> “Psalm 9:10—Those who know your name trust in you, because you have not abandoned those who seek you Lord.”

I want a faith like James>> “ James 1:2—Consider it a great joy friends, whenever you experience various trials, the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

^^^^^ James LEGIT rejoiced in the midst of a hardship— James knew that if his faith could not withstand the waves of the night storm, then his faith would not survive the light of a morning sun after it had passed. He wanted his faith to be as rooted in his soul as his own two feet in the sand and so, James praised God in the storm and he praised God in the sun—I want a James-like life.

I do not want to be a Luke-warm Christian. I do not want to give someone scripture + encouragement that I myself am not about living.

I have preached unparalleled faith for too long. Friends, we could talk about living a life of complete surrender all day. At the end of the day—What are we doing to alter the ways in which we are so sedentary?

I am a planner—[maybe you are too?]  I’m the person who needs to know the ending, I need to know the game inside and out. All of the rules so no surprises can come my way. I crave organization + preparation. To be caught off guard would be a failure on my part. Problem is—God doesn’t work that way.

He isn’t going to write down the details of my life’s purpose and shoot me an email. God asks us to seek him intentionally and he will reveal his plan for us. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart.—Jeremiah 29:13”

“For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future—Jeremiah 29:11”

I am humbled by the fact that God tells us first and foremost that he will show himself to us if we show ourselves to Him—mess and all. The thing he wants most is every broken piece of us, his children, to stop holding it all on our own and just be held.

And he follows it up with the fact that he has a plan for us— a plan of HOPE + a FUTURE! So why…Why on earth would I doubt that plan? Do I doubt God?

Has he ever failed me before? Absolutely not. So why can I not trust that His plan is so much greater than what I had in mind?

I say that I do. Do I actually believe it? Words are just words if not backed by faith.

My husband said something to me during a recent deep conversation one night— he said

“ Babe—who said it would be fair? Is it fair to wave your hand at God and say, No Thanks, what you have isn’t good enough for me.”  It WRECKED me. I had never thought of it in that aspect and when he put what I was doing in perspective for me—I was ashamed.

The fact is that we see God as comparable to the sun.

He can shine and brighten up our day for a lot of hours, but where is the sun when the moon sets high over the darkness?

What if we brought the sun down into the darkness with us. On a personal level, next to us and into the rubble of our souls.

To be an undone surrenderer—that is the hope for my faith.

To be on such a personal level with God that I do not take a second look at the past or glance a fret toward the future.

That it is, that I just LIVE in the moment with God, letting him heal the scars of the past as he paves the future in front of me.

—I am certain I have very far to go. I am also certain that we serve a merciful and faithful God. A God that will continue to save us with unfailing grace—

As we learn the art of surrender!

Thankful for a husband that supports me on any and every level of this life, who loves me through all of my OCD struggles and embraces me even in the mess. No two souls were more perfectly made for each other!

Thankful for a God that rescued me from my grave and shows me how to love others just as he loves us!

V/r,

Mrs. Moog