True Surrender

True Surrender.  They go together.  But they go apart too.  True.  Surrender.

Early each year, after the loud-mouthed December days resign to the whisper of January, I begin listening and praying for a couple traits that might characterize the year stretched out before me. 

Not goals or resolutions per se.  They have never been kind to me.  Rather a couple two or three qualities that might frame the facets and aspects of this guy’s daily life. 

I like to imagine them as qualities that will lead me forward, push me from behind, walk alongside me, steady my feet beneath me, and wave like a banner above me. 

Last year the qualities were Simple, Slow, and Still.  With greater or lesser degrees of success, they served me well.  In fact, they touched into some deep needs that were felt by my whole family.  I’m grateful for how the Lord worked in and through it all.

This year the qualities will be True and Surrender. 

Two strongholds have strangled me and my relationships long enough:  Sarcasm and Control.  Going into the year I knew, whatever the Lord would impress upon me to characterize my days, it would have to counter the effects and affects of these two cinching issues.  What surfaced on the plane of my heart were True and Surrender…

True

Twenty years ago I worked for a local furniture retailer.  I’d do some sales on Sunday’s, but mostly I did delivery and set up with Ron, one of the store owners, during the week. 

“True up the legs, would ya?”  Ron spoke over his shoulder as he left the house to get a couple chairs from the truck.  We were putting together a high-end dining room table in a customer’s house.  I was kneeling by the table; top down, with each leg pointing up and loosely bolted into place.  The command halted me.

What the hell does he mean by that? I thought to myself.  Back then I used words-we-walk-on like that in my head, but I was too much of a coward to use them when I spoke. 

“What do you mean by that?” I hollered back.  He was out the door and didn’t hear me. 

The home owner – and new table owner – was standing nearby.  He was a distinguished looking gentleman, casually dressed in pressed trousers and a button up sweater over a collared shirt, with house shoes on his feet.  He took a couple steps toward the scene.

“Would you like a hand?” he offered kindly.

I turned, looked up at him and smiled.  “Oh, no thank you.”  I spoke overtop of one of those fake chuckles that breathes out when you decline an invitation or offer with a sort of embarrassed face-saving effort.

“He meant tighten them up.  Straighten them out and tighten them up,” he offered again, pointing to the legs.    

“Right.”  My proud tone pretended I knew all along.  I’m sure he knew better.

That was then, this is now.  I’m different in some respects.  Never-the-less, this year I want to leave that behind.  I want to live and love true.  True as opposed to false, yes.  But more so, true like a rightly fastened table leg; a life and love that is plumb, level, and square. 

I don’t want to live and love in a way that makes folks cock their heads, furrow their brow, and question my validity.  “Is this guy for real?”  I want actions and attitudes to be authentic.  I want to be true.

I get tired of all my small talk and sarcasm to lighten moods and moments.  It all runs shallow and rough over relationships that have all the potential in the world to be deep and smooth.  I want to be true.

Bare-naked honest, I think I have some things to offer.  I think God has given me a measure of wisdom and insight to give away to others.  But I think it gets muddled in years of lacking self-confidence and courage; years of head-taller-than-everyone-King-Saul-esque insecurities.  I want to be true. 

I want to be more straight-forward and direct; stop mincing words or slanting comments to please people and placate challenges.  I want my life and my love to align, my words and deeds to match.  I want to be true. 

This year I want “the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart to be acceptable” and pleasing in the sight of my God; upright before my Redeemer.  I want to true up my days and dreams to what God has purposed and live more in line with the character of Jesus.  I want to be true…to who He has made me to be. 

Surrender

True, as a counter for sarcasm, had come on early in the month.  A counter for control gave me some trouble.  I tried “release.”  I bobbled it around for a few days but couldn’t get a handle on it.  A couple other qualities rattled around in my mind, but nothing settled in my heart…until one day on my way home from church.

Music plays in the background of my life.  It has since my teenage years recording mix-tapes of hard and soft rock ballads off the local radio station.  Most times I can’t shake it.  Other times it shakes me. 

Over the years my musical preferences have been refined; while not to the exclusion of hard and soft rock ballads, certainly to the inclusion of milder tones that reach the soul and stir up joy and gratitude. 

For Christmas my daughter gave me for King and Country’s new CD, “Burn the Ships.”  I had listened to it play over and over in my car a half-dozen or more times before one blaring declaration finally took hold of me tighter than this controller was comfortable. 

The first verse of track 8 was lost in the back of my mind when the chorus began.

“I give up control, oh, oh, whoa…

Body, mind and soul, oh, oh, whoa…

Can’t do this on my own, no, no…

I give up control.”

The song played on but that chorus ran circles in my mind.  I give up control.  I give up.  Release?  Yes…but more.  Surrender!  That’s it!

White flag lifted up and flying. 

“Come out with your hands up.” 

Turn it over. 

Turn myself in. 

Arms in the air, hands flung open. 

Surrender! 

Along with True, I want my year to be characterized by Surrender. 

This year I want to surrender my need to be right, to be first, to be praised, or to be acknowledged for some self-perceived greatness. 

This year I want to surrender the worries I harbor over my health that exhaust me and cripple me more often than I lead on. 

This year I want to surrender my tightened grip on relationships with people who mean more to me than my ability to restrain or release the relationship itself. 

This year I want to surrender my dreams from a decade ago, and I want to surrender my fears from further back still that have held my dreams captive for the full breadth of the decade. 

This year I want to surrender to my God all which I presume to control and aspire to control, but in reality has controlled me.  I want my hands up and open to release and receive.  This year I will surrender…to what He actually may have for me.

True.  Surrender.

I want to be true in a manner that demands I surrender and I want to surrender in a manner that is true.  I want to move head-long into every day – every meeting, service, conversation, quiet time, dinner time, game time, movie time, all the time – every day with true surrender.    They go apart.  But they go together too.