I Am Willing

Lord, I am willing

To receive what You give

To lack what You withhold

To relinquish what You take

To suffer what You inflict

To be what You require

And to do what You sent me to do. 

Amen.

Wow.

Which one of us can say this fully and completely? Who can finish this sentence without pausing for a moment of self-reflection?

Certainly this is beautiful. Certainly there is so much truth in this. Certainly this is flawless surrender to our God.

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Eph 2:10). God created us to reflect His image to the world. We are people of His own possession (1 Peter 2:9). We are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Matt 16:24). 

This beautiful piece doesn’t just remind us of surrender; it reminds us of the absolute beauty of surrender. 

To receive what You give

When we are willing to receive what the Lord gives, we will receive good and perfect gifts. James 1:17 says “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” When we surrender ourselves to what He gives, we must remind ourselves that everything He gives is for His glory and our good. These gifts won’t always be easy. Sometimes the Lord will see it fit to send us hard trials. But we are called to rejoice always (Phil 4:4), in the good and the bad. The character of God never changes and in that we may rest.

To lack what You withhold

What the Lord gives He can also take away. When we lack what God withholds, C.S. Lewis says this: “(These) are often God's greatest mercies, withholding what we thought we needed to give us what we actually required.” Our thoughts will not always align with God’s. We may think something to be beneficial, while it may actually destroy us. John Piper says, “God withholds certain things from us to teach us to treasure Him above every good thing. When He refuses to give us the good thing we plead for, He is actually giving us something even greater: Himself.”

To relinquish what You take

Relinquish what He takes. This may in fact be the hardest part to read. It is incredibly hard to surrender to the Lord our dreams, our siblings, our hearts, our romance, our life. I speak from personal experience. In 2020, my younger sister died in the womb. I had been praying for another sibling for over two years and her death struck a deep chord in my heart. I had to learn the profound lesson of surrendering to the Lord. My younger sister was never mine. She had always been the Lord’s from the very first second of conception. What He gives, He can take away (Job 1:21). It is all His. It is all His creation. It is vitally important to remember that the Creator has good intentions for His creation (Rom 8:28). Everything He takes from us is to burn away the dross that confines us and to illuminate the gold that makes us look more like Him. 

To suffer what You inflict

When we submit ourselves to suffering what He inflicts, this can very often bring about hard times. In fact, as a Christian, the more we look like Christ, the more our pain will increase. Yet we have this promise. “He will help you drink the cup of sorrow and, at the same time, feel the sunshine of His love and His sustaining grace and His promise to bring you through.” When we go through trials, we oftentimes are drawn all the more closer to Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Suffering Servant.

To be what You require

To be what You require. This beautiful standard is laid out for us in Micah 6:8. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” To glorify the Lord in all that we do should be what we aspire to. (1 Co 10:31)

And to do what You sent me to do

When we submit our will to God, we say that we will do what the Lord sent us to do. And, oh, He most definitely has a good plan. He is making everything beautiful (Ecc 3:11). To be a part of God’s plan is absolutely breathtakingly humbling. Yes, it will be hard. But, yes, it will be worth it. To be sent out as messengers by the King of the world is an incredible honor and we should never take that lightly. 

In conclusion, I encourage you, dear reader, to chase after the King and to surrender your crowns at His feet. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Isaiah 52:7). The character of God is breathtaking. He is a good God, with good intentions to those He calls His children. Serve Him well. Love Him in strength. Enjoy Him now and forever more.