The Power of Surrender As a kid, did you ever try taking on a task that was larger than you were? You decided to carry milk from the refrigerator to the table, never mind that the milk weighed more than you did. Did you jump from a height that in all reality was much taller than you thought it at first? What about deciding that you would get dressed without the aid of an adult, and upon presenting yourself you quickly learned that your shirt was inside out and backward, and your shoes were on the wrong feet? All of these are simple feats that we tried to surmount on our own, but have you ever thought how many tasks you take on as a believer that you should have offered to Jesus first? I know I am acutely aware of this very fact. Why? I don't enjoy it when life seems out of control. Okay, overstatement...but in desperation for normality and stability in my life, I have often taken on tasks that far outreach my ability to surmount them. Although John 15:5 tells me that if I try to live a life without Jesus I am nothing, I have still tried to somehow prove that I am the exception to this statement. In every attempt, my self-made solution has crumbled beneath my feet. Through this, I am learning a life lesson. We are to offer Jesus not only every situation in our life, but allow ourselves to be stretched even further by offering Him the first thought on every situation in our life. Have you ever found yourself about nine steps into trying to solve something, meeting up with a dead end, and thinking, "Well, I guess I could pray about it." I know I have. I am trying to allow myself to stop my natural thinking and instead heed what Jesus is warning me about...my efforts are not going to produce fruit if I don't first offer my initial thinking on the matter to Him. Not the easiest for a driven person to consider, but none-the-less, a lesson I am better off for learning. "Be still and know that I am God", another time in the Bible that I am told that it is better to have just waited, let God be the Lord of my situation, and then allow Him to guide me. When I first tried to start implementing this into my life, I honestly thought I was going to go stir crazy. I kept thinking, "What good does it do to wait upon the Lord, there are things that need to be done." But, as I started to see the fruit of this sacrifice I was offering Him in my life, I started to see why it is that He requests this of us. Jesus is not an egomaniac. He does not make a request of us that is somehow self-serving, instead it serves to deliver something to us. We are shown peace through surrender of every situation in our lives. We are allowed in surrender, to taste what it is that He had here on Earth with His Father in Heaven. Jesus tells us in John 5:19 that He does nothing without the Father. If we are hoping to have peace here on Earth, where evil runs rampant, then we must finally come to a position of understanding that there is power in our surrender to the Lord, not impotence. Pastor Daniella