Today I was reading Discipleship: Living for Christ in the Daily Grind, which includes quotes from J. Heinrich Arnold.
Arnold was the pastor, or Leader, of an Anabaptist group called the Bruderhof Communities. I would describe it as a kind of Protestant monastic movement, where members make a lifetime vow to give all their income, etc., to the church community.
Arnold writes:
When people are healthy and happy, or when their economic foundation is stable, they all too often become lukewarm. They may give over to God the things they feel are not healthy in them – things that bring them distress or struggle. Yet even when these things drive them to prayer, they reserve their innermost person for themselves.
The fact that we seek God at all in times of misfortune shows us that our deepest being actually hungers and thirsts for him. We should bring our fears to God; we should bring him our sickness and anguish. But this is not enough. We must give him our innermost being, our heart and soul. When we humble ourselves before him in this way and give ourselves completely over to him – when we no longer resist giving him our whole person and whole personality – then he can help us, first by bringing us to bankruptcy and then by filling us with true life (5-6).
As I read this, I reflected on the two ways of wanting God that I have experienced:
One way is to want to add God into my life.
The other way is to humbly surrender my entire life to God, that he might be everything to me.
Consistently, it seems that the first approach leads to disappointment and discouragement, whereas the other is paradoxically the only pathway to enjoying God.
Yet it is hard to remain in a posture of humble dependence upon God. So, in the attempt to live a life surrendered to God, I find myself saying, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
Additionally, I remind myself that God is good. He will not take advantage of my surrendering to him in order to misuse me for selfish ends. Rather, his only desire is to restore me, heal me, renew me, and enable me to live a fully human life.
What helps you surrender your life to God?