Big Idea: You don’t always have the power to control, but you always have the power to surrender.
Scripture: Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
Devotion: I grew up in a small town, and I loved it. But by the time graduation rolled around, I had one goal: to go somewhere else. So, I ventured down to Kansas City for college and was studying to be an elementary teacher. Somewhere along the way, I changed my major and got married. My husband and I had plans to stay in Kansas City, but then a job offer came his way. And, of course, it was in Sioux City. We would be going back home (or in the vicinity of it), which I had never planned on. Upon moving back, our plan was not to stay in Sioux City long. We thought it might be a few years, and we would move on. Well, the Lord had different plans. A few years in, my husband made an unplanned career change, and I started working at the church. From there, our community grew, our family grew, and our roots here grew.
Was any of this the plan? No. Had you told me when I was a senior in high school that I would live in Sioux City, I would likely have laughed at you. But there isn’t a thing I would change about it now. The Lord’s plan in all of it has become abundantly clear.
When my husband was given the job opportunity, we had no idea what to do. Though we were the ones who would ultimately make the decision, it threw us off kilter. We didn’t hold the reins quite the way we had thought. But the first thing that we did was pray about it. We surrendered it to the Lord.
One great example of this in the Bible is in the life of Moses. The Lord calls to him from a burning bush and tells him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses argues with the Lord about it but ultimately ends up surrendering. After the plagues and Pharaoh finally letting the Israelites go, they end up wandering around in the wilderness for forty years before finally getting to enter the Promised Land.
I’m sure upon hearing about the land when God spoke to him through a burning bush, “So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Exodus 3:8), Moses likely had plans for his life and an idea of what it might look like. He anticipated making it into this beautiful land with his wife, Zipporah, and their kids. They would build a home there and live a prosperous life. But due to the wandering hearts and minds of the Israelites (and Moses himself), he never actually sees the Promised Land. And yet, he leads them until his last days. He didn’t have control of the situation, only the Lord did. But he did have the power to surrender, and he chose to do that day after day.
The word choice for today’s big idea is intentional. You don’t always have the power to control, but you always have the power to surrender. Surrender is a choice. And the choice is always yours. There is power in surrender. Recognizing that often, things are out of our control, we can either try to cling on to the little bit of control and influence we do have, or we can decide to surrender it all over to the Lord.
Reflect:
- When you think of surrender, do you think of it as a choice? What obstacles do you face when trying to surrender things to God?
