There is a moment in life when everything changes. You are ready to completely surrender to God and His ways. And they are completely different from the way you were headed.
It’s that moment you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut because you know your life will never be the same again. It’s a good thing because you desperately needed to surrender in order to really begin to live.
Turn Around
You have been headed in one direction and realize it is taking you further away from the God you really want to serve. And so, with a pounding heart, you make the commitment and you turn around and go God’s way.
You have no idea if what you are about to do will work or not. You just know it’s where God is leading you and that is where you MUST go or nothing will ever make sense any more.
The Moment
This moment of surrender is one that everyone must come to. It’s the moment you lay down the one thing you rely on more than God. For me it was sugar and flour. Making the decision to give up those really good friends was without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
The difficulty was really on the front end of the decision. It’s that struggle deep within your gut. You argue with yourself, with God, with the wind. This thing that has been your comfort, your protection, your provision, your source to calm any emotion, to get you through any crisis feels like a part of your very existence.
To give it up feels like you will rip out a part of you with it. It feels dangerous, like you are leaving yourself vulnerable. It’s the feeling my Grandma describes as “being hung out to dry.”
It’s taking a step and not knowing if there is ground underneath to catch you. And if you fail what will happen? And if you fall who will catch you?
You needn’t be fearful, though. If God is leading you, when you take what feels like a very risky first step of faith, you will fall right into the arms of grace. Believe me, it’s the safest place you can be.
There’s nothing like the feeling of doing something not totally over-processed a thousand ways by your brain. Faith does not mix well with long, protracted hours of thinking of everything that can go wrong. It mixes much better with dwelling on what will go right when you do what you know God is leading you to do.
Commitment
The proof, though, is in the complete abandonment and total commitment to what you know is God’s next step for you.
There must be commitment to the process or surrender is just another religious act. God doesn’t want us to surrender the things we have placed above Him because He says so. He want us to do it to show Him how much we love Him.
There’s Always a Choice
God always gives us a choice. We can continue going out own way, doing whatever we want. In my case, I could continue eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and however much I wanted. If I had chosen that way, I’m sure I would be dead today.
The other choice is life.1 We can choose to follow His ways and take care of our bodies which are the temples of His Spirit.2 We can choose to listen to what He tells us to eat, when He tells us to eat and how much He tells us to eat. We can surrender the trigger foods that cause us to eat more and start eating the healthy foods that fuel our bodies.
It’s a simple choice and He gives us the answer. “Oh that you would choose life so that you and your descendants might live.”1
Still, it is a choice. God gave us free will so we would choose the correct way. As we do, He blesses us for our choice. Our choice shows we love Him because we are obeying Him.3
My friend, I see you out there and I know you want so desperately to follow God and love Him with all your heart, but you feel like your hands are tied in this one area of what you eat.
The Reason for Surrender
From experience, I can tell you if you stop eating things made with refined sugar and actually any processed, high-carbohydrate foods you will find it much easier to stay true to your course. One bite of processed sugar and it is hard for me to stop because I am like an alcoholic only with sugar.
Those like me must surrender the sugar. This can only happen with God’s complete and total guidance. We come to the point where we realize we are powerless over certain foods and we need a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity.
The Power of Grace
When we admit our weakness, that’s when the power of grace becomes the wind at our backs. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in (your) weakness.”4
It’s so simple. We take our weakness and lay it at Jesus’ feet. He gives us the power of His grace to overcome our weakness. It’s in this process that the power of grace is activated.
It’s called surrender and God always blesses surrender.
1 Deut. 30:19-20
2 1 Cor. 6:19-20
3 John 14:15
4 2 Cor 12:9
Teresa Shields Parker is an author, blogger, editor, business owner, wife and mother. Her book, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds and Stopped Trying to Earn God’s Favor is available on Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible HERE. This story is from her blog, teresashieldsparker.com.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
