Praying to Trust You Today

Some surrenders are harder than others.

Like this one.

I made myself vulnerable to you. Decided to trust you in something that’s always felt safer to control myself. Oh, I’m sure to others it looks as if I’ve handed this over to you. And in many ways I have. I’ve prayed, I’ve listened, I’ve discerned, I’ve acted. All in genuine faith. All with a desire to invite you into what is already divine. Kind of funny, I guess. But I’ve never been comfortable completely surrendering this sacred part of me.

Yet, you knit me together, you know me better than I know my own self. You’ve taken me to some hard places, but you’ve never left me there. You’ve called me out of sin, and you’ve always forgiven me.

You, oh Lord, can be trusted. I know this full well.

It just feels like the more I trust you, the more you ask me to trust you in. And the more I surrender, the more you ask me to let go of. Like it’s never going to be enough.

And my never-enough-culture has made me a little sensitive to this.

I know it’s different with you. You want more of me, so you can be more for me. But somehow I still struggle with the release. With the letting go. With the trusting you with my limits, my dreams, my abilities.

I’m sure you’re giggling just a little right now. Just like you did in the moment of surrender when we talked and talked and talked and talked. The questions I asked must have seemed humorous to a God who knows how the story ends.

I’m just glad I can admit this to you. This wavering trust. This fear of you not coming through this time. This almost resentment that you did what you wanted, instead of what I thought I wanted.

But I lift my hands to believe again. You are my refuge, you are my strength. As I pour out my heart, these things I remember:

You are faithful, God, forever.*

Let faith arise in me. For this daughter longs to trust you with every corner of my heart, every fear that stings, every journey that seems hard. With every opportunity I have to love, every child entrusted to my care, and every hope for my future.

_________________

*Lyrics of Christ Tomlin