Surrender is hard work

We've all heard countless times that the key to our peace in any situation, large or small is that we surrender our will to God's will. We have to trust in His providence, and abandon ourselves to His providence and He will take care of the rest.

For the weary, exhausted person tired of dealing with the challenge at hand, the idea of surrender is quite appealing. When I finally reach the point of letting go of a particular trial in my life, I think that in the back of my mind, I am expecting that now that I have decided to surrender, the hard work on my part is over. God will just take care of everything. I'm off the hook.

Unfortunately though, this is not usually the case. Surrender does not mean that we will immediately be freed from the grunt work and our problems will be miraculously solved.

This hit me hard today as I continued on my car search. I spent six hours this afternoon (my brother kindly lent me his car to drive around to various dealerships) trying to find my way to unfamiliar places in the pouring rain, getting lost, having my phone battery die on me while I was trying to get directions, dealing with the tiresome antics of car salesmen, and the list goes on. I found myself thinking, "Really God! I have surrendered this to you! Why does it continue to be this hard?"

Then I realized that sometimes it's even harder to trudge through the grunt work after you have intentionally surrendered to God, because you expect Him to take all of the grunt work out of your way, pronto. But really, surrender is more of a disposition of the heart; an ability to climb the mountains in front of you with renewed faith. God might not move the mountain in front of you, but He will give you the extra grace to get over the mountain. Or maybe He'll give you a shortcut. But He won't necessarily bail you out in the way you imagine He should.

"Our peace...does not mean that we shall longer longer fight. Temptation will still be temptation, suffering will still be suffering, the world will still be the world...but the world will not destroy us.  The peace of Christ is Christ. There is no other. 'I have said this to you that in me you may find peace. In the world you will only find tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world.' How often in Christ we see peace and tribulation together...The risen Christ shows his wounds and bestows his peace in one gesture of love. " ~ Caryll Houselander

There is a saying, "Work as if 90 percent of what happens depends on you and 10 percent depends on God. Prays as if 90 percent depends on God and 10 percent depends on you."

Feet on the ground, eyes to heaven, Lord, give me your grace.