Reflections of Grace 52: Living from the Heart – Letting Go & Surrender

Reflections of Grace 52: Living from the Heart – Letting Go & Surrender Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Reminder: This is a rough outline of the podcast. If you want to hear about my personal application of this teaching please tune in and listen.

• It is usually at the peak of arrogance that we feel the first blow pointing towards true surrender, and we reluctantly do it because we have to! Isn’t that God’s patient way with us? He allows us to come to the fact that there is just no other choice.
• Here are a few things I have learned about surrender along my journey that I share with you…
• By the way, it is NEVER easy because we are human.   This is how I learned what surrendering means, the hard way, and the TRUE way:

1. It is usually when there is no other place to turn but to God; we are maxed out of ideas and there is no way out.

• In the end we have to accept the changes that happened, that things may never be the same way they were, and that we get to make choices.
• Stop fighting the reality that this is real.
• We could be OK with it and flow with God, or be miserable for the rest of whatever time we struggle.

2. Stop murmuring and complaining!

• Complaining only diminishes your faith and robs you of your joy…you believe it when you hear yourself saying it. It makes us pretty unlovely people and we drive others away from us. Who wants to listen to that every time they are around you?
• Someone said that non-complaining is a muscle, and as such, it needs practice.
• What did murmuring get the children of Israel as they wandered through the desert? Nothing, but Quail up to the eyeballs!

3. Being thankful for what you have, and, here is the key, WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE…YET!

• Know that He always has a plan and isn’t going to let you sink.
• Thankfulness is one of the most powerful forces in the Kingdom of God.
• If you list just ten things you are grateful for today then suddenly you have “perspective.”
• Never underestimate the power of gratitudewhen you are trying to surrender. It is like a shortcut, it gets you there really fast, and underlies how blessed you are, already.
• It’s not easy to think with gratitude when we feel like we are in the gutter…

4. BE STILL and know He is God!

• Learning to let go of our fears and let them go to Him and not allow them entrance into our minds anymore is most of the battle of true surrender.
• When we shut up and just BE, circumstances resolve themselves right in front of our eyes.
• I practice shutting up all the time now. I know how powerful it is. Talk about the power of surrendering those words of anger! No room to do that when you are sitting in the presence of God almighty!

5. GIVE UP CONTROL

• I learned to take one day at a time and learned to trust instead of fear.
• With a clear intention I let go of how I thought things were going to happen because I had no control over the “how.”
• Sometimes things move way too slow. Sometimes they don’t move at all. We can intend and keep our vision that He is traveling this journey with us and wait for the break through.

6. LETTING GO OF THE PICTURE

I have always been one who tried to fit everything into a picture I had in my head of how it was supposed to be. It was my place of denial and avoidance. I learned this mind survival skill as a child escaping my perpetrator who was molesting me. It was no longer working for me as an adult, but I was still doing it. I had to stop and face reality.

• But the thing that gets me is that whatI get is NEVER how I pictured it in the first place.
• As surrendering gets more in tune with God we begin to realize that everything we tell ourselves is just a story out of our own minds, based on our own backgrounds. His pictures of us are very different and are the very best for us.
• The mind labels things and prides itself in knowing. But what “is” with Jesus always happens beyond the ideas that our minds wants to box-in.

7. BEYOND SURRENDERING

• Beyond surrendering we understand – at a intuitive Holy Spirit level –and we begin to live life as a practice of being present for what is arising in this moment, surrendering all concerns to Him as they show up on our radar.
• This leads to seeing everything as spiritual. Because this moment, with its infinite possibilities, is We are spiritual beings even when we don’t FEEL spiritual.
• Miracles happen when we go beyond surrendering and we incorporate it as a way of life. Prayerful surrender becomes a way of life because we have a subtle appreciation that this is the moment where everything is possible.

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