HESITANT DEPARTURE
Once I realized that prayer, Bible study, attending Church, trying to be a good person, or even asking God to take control of my life doesn’t equal surrender, my greatest desire became to learn how to truly surrender and start living as the woman He created me to be.

So why the hesitation?
It all came down to my thinking. There was a voice—a subtle and often cleverly disguised voice—that calls to each of us. Its sole purpose is to keep us from following Jesus.

It causes confusion by raising doubts, appealing to our pride, and turning our focus to happiness and comfort in the moment, keeping us from being eternity-minded. It had taken up residence in my mind for decades, but it was nothing more than useless, excess baggage keeping me from my purpose.

Living with one foot in the world and the other foot stepping into God’s Kingdom is not what He wants for any of us, but I had allowed that voice to create a battle in my mind that kept me from jumping in with both feet.

Even though surrender promised to be the journey of a lifetime, I realized it would also be a lifetime journey guaranteed to impact every area of my life.

Instead of focusing on the destination and The One in control, my thoughts were being invaded by questions designed to keep me away from surrender: What will I encounter along the way? What will I have to give up? What if I can’t endure and I fail? What if I become a person that others don’t like? What if I become a person that I don’t like?

It should have been easy to ignore those questions and simply move forward, trusting God. But even though I had no conscious desire to stay where I was, there was a sense of security in knowing what my current location had to offer— familiarity. I had grown accustomed to and maybe even comfortable in my imperfect, anxious life. That voice was quick to remind me how difficult it is to move out of your comfort zone.

Does God have a weight limit?
Although likely my greatest deterrent, that voice wasn’t the only baggage I was carrying around. And it regularly pointed out that surrender might be difficult with so much weighing me down.

There were old habits so embedded in my personality, that I had learned to justify them. Things like my tendency to jump into control mode the moment a problem arose, or hanging on to past hurts. They were like little souvenirs I had collected over the years that I just hadn’t been able to part with.

I knew I would need help releasing those things as well as many other things I wasn’t able to see at the moment, but I was certain that most of what was buried down there wouldn’t be needed where I was going.

The voice was telling me to clean up and lighten the load before surrender, but Jesus calls to “all who are weary and heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28). I was ready to answer that call.

The new plan was to bring everything to God so He could show me what needed to go and how to move forward (Psalm 139: 23&24).

I didn’t want to have a say in the matter—I wanted him to make all the decisions, and teach me how to keep my eyes on Him instead of what was being surrendered.

So, with a bit of uncertainty, I took off towards surrender with all my excess baggage, including that ridiculously heavy “other voice”.