face down

Have you ever felt stuck? Sick and tired of your current position, too wise to go back, but too scared to go forward? Maybe you have the courage to move forward, but find it impossible?

That’s me today. Make that for the last month or more. I know that God wants to do a specific work in me. While there’s a part of me that wants Him to do it… most of me is scared to death.

The Lord showed me recently that this is probably the most significant work that He will ever do in me. That is why the enemy has worked so hard to keep me stuck. Until God does this work, so many of His plans and promises are on hold. It involves changing my “default setting” as I like to say.

Because of hurts in my past, I behave a certain way in relationships. I feel so powerless to change that about myself. I’ve tried making adjustments myself, but it never lasts long. I return to my old “setting” and I don’t experience everything that God wants for me in my relationships with others.

Lately, I have felt so stuck. So powerless to move forward. Even angry. In some ways, I am miserable and I feel like I can’t do a dog-gone thing about it.

Last night, I met with my small group and the Lord spoke two things to me very clearly. The first was that I am believing a lie. The enemy has convinced me that the change God desires for me is impossible. I have been saying over and over in my head, in my prayers, to my small group last night that I cannot change. God says that this is a lie.

The truth is that I don’t know how to change. However, God knows how to change me. I’ve been so busy believing that I can’t change and being mad at God because I can’t change, that I forgot to let God do His thing.

That brings me to the second thing that God revealed to me last night. The answer to my whole problem is surrender.

Maybe you hate that answer as much as I do. I had all of the responses you’d expect from a two-year-old last night… and even a bit this morning. But I know what I need to do.

What does surrender look like for you? For me, it means getting face down on the living room floor at some wee hour of the morning when the rest of the house is sound asleep. It means laying it all down, crying it all out, and falling in an exhausted heap next to my mountain of snotty balled-up tissues. It means laying face down before my God with all of my excuses, motives, and anger confessed. It means saying every last thing that I have stored up in my heart, and then being really quiet before the One who loves me from the top of my head, through the dysfunction of my heart and mind, all the way down to my feet that keep running away.

I need to get face down and surrender. I didn’t have the courage to do it this morning, but it’s coming. The Lord kept breathing Genesis 22 in my ear this morning. When I turned there, everything that God had been saying to me was confirmed. I need to lay my heart down as a sacrifice before Him. I need to entrust my heart to Him, knowing that He will give it back to me in much better shape. I need to hand Him my heart so He can change me.

I just have to find the courage get face down. I just have to surrender.