breaking down the box.

surrendering control. [2]


The summer after my junior year I went to my church’s youth camp. The same youth camp which my church has attended for over a decade. Great Commission Ministries’ High School Leadership Training [HSLT] in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

This specific year the week was themed, “Surrender.” We received shirts reading, “I Surrender,” and each youth group involved designed their own “white flag.”

That was the first year I went to camp and didn’t get a “spiritual high” that dissipated within the next few weeks of returning home. This trip was not a “mountain top” experience.

That was the week when it hit me.

I had prayed and accepted Christ as a six year old. I gave my life to Him. Isn’t that what becoming a “Christian” is all about? Giving your life away? Why had I been living like my life was my own?

My life working up to that summer, I lived outwardly like a good Christian. I went to church 2 times a week. Every two weeks I attended a small group with a couple other girls my age. I wasn’t afraid to share the gospel. I was leading devotionals at school events. I mentored to younger girls on my Christian school’s cheerleading squad. I always set a good example. I probably appeared close to perfect.

I had been living like God was part of my life. And He was just that . . . a part of my life.

I wasn’t emotional. I had that under control. I was well liked and had plenty of friends. That was under control as well. I had a great job, making more money than anyone my age. Finances were under control. My grades were great. Parents were pleased. I had my life under control.

Wrong.

I had been living like God was a part of my life.

I had not been living like He was Lord of my life.

Simply because . . . He wasn’t.

God was another aspect of my life which I believed I had control over.


I always wondered why I was giving, giving, giving, then finally I would CRASH. I wondered why I was constantly physically and spiritually, and often socially and mentally drained.

It finally hit me at age seventeen, attending HSLT; I was living my life by my own strength. Emotion took over, and the week was incredibly humbling. I left feeling weak and broken, but it was the beginning of a growing experience. God was beginning a maturing process inside me. He was beginning to grow me up into a woman, the woman He had already created me to be.


I finally surrendered control to God, and I finally understood what that meant. It meant that when I returned home, I had to surrender my life again. And the next morning, once again. And repeat. I finally understood that giving up and letting go was a moment-by-moment necessity in my spiritual walk.

From that point on, my relationship with the Lord became real. I started experiencing the Father in a whole new way. He revealed Himself to me like I had never seen before. I realized that the god which I had been “following” before was not the same God I now knew. Not at all. The old god whom I “followed” was a limited, defined god which I had created based off of different truths I had seen and heard.
This new God was exciting and powerful. I began to see the vastness of His character.

Now notice I said, “Based off of truths.” I was exposed to truth, yet my primitive faith was something I created. It was not a change of heart which the Lord had placed inside of me.


There are certain aspects of life which are harder to surrender than others. Something we must understand is that those aspects differ from person to person, situation to situation and from circumstance to circumstance.

For many people, the hardest thing to surrender is their love life.

For others, their pride.

Some people struggle most with surrendering their insecurity.

Whatever the struggle, why do we believe we can’t let go? Or is that that we believe we shouldn’t let go?

I couldn’t let go of control in my life, because subconsciously, I thought that God didn’t want to handle my life. He didn’t want to handle me. For some people, they believe that God can’t handle their lives. He can’t handle who they are.

That brings us back to the box.

Not surrendering control over your life limits God. Limits your experience of Him.

Thinking God doesn’t want to deal with you, or doesn’t want to bear your burden is going against who He is. You’re deciding for God. You’re deciding something about Him that contradicts truth.

Thinking that God can’t take care of you is different but it has the same result. Contradicting truth, and placing God in a box.


How do you surrender to the Lord? The box has to be opened and the walls must be torn down.

If you struggle with believing the Lord wants to switch yokes, you have to grow in understanding of who you are in Him.

If you struggle with believing in the power He holds over all things, you have to grow in understanding of who He is.

Maybe you struggle with both?

I think to a degree, we all do.


Who are you in Him?

John 1:12 states that you are His child.

John 15:15 states that you are His friend.

Romans 5:1, you have been justified.

1 Corinthians 12:27, you are a part of Christ’s body.

You’re chosen by Him, Ephesians 1:4.

Colossians 2:10 says that in Him you are made complete. That’s huge.

Romans 8:1, you are free from condemnation.

2 Timothy 1:7, you have a Spirit of power, not fear.

1 Corinthians 3:16, you are His temple!

This is exciting stuff. And the list continues. Digging into His Word is the best way to grow in understanding of how the Lord views you. His Word is Truth.
Truth.

Matthew 11:28-30 . . . "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Zephaniah 3:17 . . . The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

You are the creator’s creation. He cherishes you. Every aspect of you.


The journey of learning who I am in Christ began with a book. And surprisingly not the Bible [another example that God does things in different ways].

The book is titled Captivating, written by Stasi and John Eldridge. This book is designed to help women understand the elements of God’s character which He has placed uniquely in them, as opposed to men. John also wrote another book, Wild at Heart, directed to men for the same purpose.
The Lord used Captivating to reveal to me a side of myself which no matter how hard I try, I cannot escape.

And prior to this reading experience [and even now at times] I was constantly trying to escape.

Despite the lies to myself and others, I am a woman at large [No, I didn’t tell others I was a man]. With being a woman comes certain characteristics, characteristics that prior to reading the book I viewed as curses. I refused to be “female.”

I rebelled against emotion.

I refused to have a desire for attention.

I tried to avoid drama.

I didn’t want to be a “dumb girl.”

As a side note, I must to explain to you what I mean by being a “dumb girl. Short story, which will easily explain my aversion to being “female,” or what I have so arrogantly deemed as female.

My oldest brother [four years older than I] was the first in my family to go to public school. He started in 5th grade, and from then on until high school graduation, he was a stud. I’m talking major “hottie.” He was athletic, intelligent, friendly, and incredibly good looking. He was captain of the varsity soccer team from sophomore year until he graduated. He was Homecoming King, Mr. Woodstock High School, he would have been crowned Prom King if it weren’t for the school rule against being “triple-crowned.”

Well of course the girls flocked. There wasn’t a girl who didn’t want Benjamin’s attention. I liked a few of them, but the “dumb girls” definitely outnumbered the ones whose existence I enjoyed.
I once walked into his room to ask him a quick question and he was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time. I began turn and leave, when with panic on his face he frantically motioned to stop me. Without stopping to ask the girl [who I question to this day if he even knew her name] to hold on a minute, he covered the mouth piece.

“Emily, take the phone and just say, ‘mhm . . .’ or ‘yeah . . .’ every few minutes.” Then he handed me the phone. I thought he had to be kidding. But looking up to my big brother the way I did [and the way I do], I obeyed. 5-10 minutes later I handed the phone back to him. I was in shock. The “dumb girl” had talked and talked and talked. She didn’t for a moment even question if he was listening. She had not even noticed his absence. Or my presence.

It was at that moment, close to age 9, when I handed the phone back to my big brother, that I made a vow to myself. I would never be a self-absorbed bimbo with nothing to do but listen to myself talk. I wouldn’t be emotional. I wouldn’t be needy. I would never become this picture of what [in my mind] was “being female.”

Captivating opened my eyes to the fact that I am. I am a female. I desire to be beautiful. I desire attention. I desire to be loved.

Before, I was independent [in an unhealthy way]. I was beyond confident, and my confidence wasn’t found in Christ.

As I realized the characteristics I had and could not get away from, my first reaction was rough. I had become what I vowed I never would be.

I had emotions. I needed people? I had insecurities?

How could other people love someone so needy? How could people love someone emotional, someone insecure? I certainly couldn’t.

The bigger question was: how could God?

That was when the Lord began to reveal to me who I was in Him. The me that He saw.

After that process began, and I began to see that God loved me for being female, I now had to learn to love myself.


Loving other people has always come easy to me. But loving myself is one of my biggest struggles. Even as I continue to learn who I am in Christ, I still have a tendency to hold expectations of myself. Of perfection, and nothing less. Yet from others, I hold little to no expectations. I can accept and forgive without hesitation.

The Lord gave me a vision a couple years back which sparked some healing. It gave me a new view of myself.

In the vision I saw a girl. Beaten and battered. Bruised, cold, wet. She was sitting in a corner, in filthy clothing and her hair was a stringy mess. Her head was down on her knees and she was shaking slightly. I stood at a distance looking at her.

Immediately all I felt was compassion.
I loved her.

I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to listen. I wanted to take care. I wanted to provide. I wanted to help her.

I was curious. I slowly approached.

The girl hesitantly looked up. Her face was red, tear-drenched, her eyes were swollen and blood-shot. Yet there was something beautiful about her. In her vulnerability. Her humility. As I inched closer something hit me like a ton of bricks. It made my stomach drop. My mouth was dry.

It was me.

The girl, the broken, needy, beautiful girl I was approaching was me. And I loved her?

It was as if God was challenging me. If I had felt the love and compassion for her before I knew who she was, why should that change now? Why couldn’t I love myself?

For a moment I had loved myself. I loved that girl, no matter how needy. No matter how broken. She was beautiful in brokenness, beautiful in vulnerability. She was loveable.

That vision was another turning point in my understanding of love for and from the Lord. For the first time I felt a love for myself, simply because the Lord loved me.

This was me giving up control of who God was.

As I continued to grow, I couldn’t give God character, He was placing character within me.


For those of you who don’t struggle with how the Lord views you. Perhaps you struggle with how you view the Lord?

Who is God?

How do you view Him?

Is your view in line with who He is? With His limitless power? Or do you struggle with surrendering your life to Him because deep down you don’t believe that He can handle it?

Is your view of Him skewed?

God reveals His power to people in many different ways. He displays it extravagantly through His Holy Word. Beautifully through His hand-crafted creation. Brilliantly through miracles. Lovingly through relationships. Graciously through blessings.


In the past couple of months I’ve been doing a read-through of the Psalms. There are few things that have ever made me want to praise the Father for His power more than the psalmists’ book of Truth.

Repeatedly the psalmists tell of the Lord’s might, of His power, and how He alone is worthy of our praise.

Psalm 28:8 . . . The Lord is the strength of His people, a fortress of salvation for His anointed people.

The Lord is the Strength of all those saved. He has got to be strong, no?

Psalm 29 talks about the Lord’s voice. Simply His voice. In all It’s greatness.

It has control over all the waters. It is powerful. It is majestic. It breaks cedars. It strikes with flashes of lightning. It shakes the desert.

What kind of voice twists and shatters trees into pieces? What kind of voice has power over the oceans? Only the voice of God. The voice of someone with power beyond our comprehension.

Psalm 33:8-9 . . . Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.

Do you fear the Lord?

Fear of the Lord comes with understanding who He is. The power He holds. The control He has. The strength He contains. The comfort He gives. The forgiveness He bestows. The grace He gifts. The peace which He is.

Letting go because He is in control is important. You must realize your plans for your life, your plans for your relationships, your plans for your attitude, decision making process, finances, will fail, and only His plans will come to be.

Psalm 33:10-11 . . . The LORD foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.


I’ve been considered odd because of my love for transcendental writing. Thoreau, Emerson. Fantastic. It’s all about the looking inward and the extreme elevation of nature.

There is a large element of truth to it. Nature should be elevated.

God’s creation is a perfect, vivid, tangible example of His power.

Look out a window. Better yet, step outside. Just be quiet. Close your eyes. Breathe in a deep breath and slowly release it. No matter how hot, or how cold it may be, it’s beautiful. You cannot argue with that.

Look at the intricacy of a leaf, or the miniature world before you when you look closely at your grass. Get down on your knees and take a look. There is more to your yard than green strands [or brown if you live in GA] peeking out of the dirt, though, even that is marvelous!

The importance of surrendering your life to the Lord is not something that I or anyone can convince you of. It’s something you have to claim.

Understanding of His power isn’t something that you can be taught. It’s something the Lord must demonstrate to you. It’s something He will open your heart to, something He will open your eyes to.
My challenge to you is this. Look a little closer at His creation. Dig a lot deeper into His Word. Count your blessings. Think back to how prayers have been answered and His plan has come together.

The Lord is worthy of control.

The Lord has control.

That should be enough. Once it is, the box will begin crumbling.


Relinquishing control is the most difficult battle we have to fight as Christians. The battle is so much more than we see.

We are not the only ones at war.

There are spiritual battles going on all around us. At this very moment the Lord’s warriors are fighting demons for your attention.

Surrender is giving up and allowing the Lord to fight your battle.