Surrendering Sucks.

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer, 

another withholds what he should have given and 

only suffers want.

 Proverbs 11:24

Ever have a conversation with someone and nothing gets accomplished aside from feeling frustrated and exhausted? I know I certainly have. You can feel so defeated, like you just wasted so much precious time and breath. You walk away shaking your head, wishing you didn’t even open your mouth. Especially if the person you’re trying to talk to is as stubborn as me. 

This is exactly how I imagined God felt after sharing with me his 31 little pieces of “wisdom”.  Frustrated, exhausted and frankly, sorry He ever brought it up.

(Luckily God is way more gracious than my little human brain gives Him credit for.) 

Though none of it was exactly news to me. I’ve read these 31 books before. Except normally my sole purpose is to simply find a clever one liner that‘s tweet worthy. Other times it’s only to find the perfectly worded little saying, short and sweet enough to paint on a piece of wood. But as of late I’m trying to read through these catchy snippets of wisdom from a different perspective. As I do this I’m beginning to see that it’s not quite as cute and clever as I once thought. Not only that but it kind of thinks I’m a fool. A big fat stinky one, with a gold ring in my nose to be exact.

To top it off, it has to go and make things personal.

You see there’s this thing that I’ve kind of been holding on to. Okay, really holding on to. It’s as if I can see God holding out his hand for it and instead of just handing it over to Him, I slowly hide it behind my back, tighten my awkward grip, and walk backwards shaking my head. 

Did you just imagine a two year old with an illicit candy bar tucked into it‘s tiny fist? Because that’s kind of how I feel.

Now if I was reading these cleverly crafted words with my old perspective, I would have simply gotten out the checkbook, filled in the blanks, and checked it off my imaginary “Not a fool” list. But unfortunately taking this new approach to the scripture means I can’t just stop at the superficial.

Maybe Solomon was in fact just talking about money and gifts in this little aphorism. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it. 

Or could it be that the riches he’s talking about is the treasures we find when we completely surrender all of ourselves to Him, letting His plan for our life take precedence? Perhaps the wealth He’s referring to comes from the Peace that surpasses our understanding as we watch God take our small things and turn them into Kingdom things. Maybe it’s referring to the rich trophy of him saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. Maybe, just maybe, He just wants to be My reward.

So surrendering will always suck, but I'll wave that silly little white flag as many times as I have to if it means He gets the Glory. 

(Just in case I didn't get the picture the first time, this nice little song also decided to play first on my playlist)