I sat in the grass with my log, watching the falling rain start to slightly smear the words I had written on it with a sharpie. I had prayed people off to the task I was setting out to do before, but it was finally time to be on the participant side of things. Here I was, in solidarity with my fellow ComLifers, crashing the surrender party of the 35 World Racers that were in training this past week. The plan was to walk up a big stinkin’ hill carrying a substantial log with stuff written on it that God was asking us to surrender to Him. There are staff along the way at strategic points to pray, encourage, exhort and challenge. By the time you reached the top, physically, emotionally and spiritually spent, you lay your log down at the foot of the cross, a symbolic act of releasing this burden to the Lord. From the training side of things, it is a great catalyst, culminating days prior spent in inward reflection, grieving and healing. But, now it was my turn.
I tried to focus on the things I had written on my log and pray through them as I waited to be sent off. Honestly though, I was ticked that I had to sit out in the rain that just kept coming down harder. I began to analyze the efficiency of the strategy that was being used to pray us all out (control was one of the thing’s I had written…I wonder why??) and came to the conclusion that I was feeling completely unspiritual and unparticipatory at the moment. This was going to be interesting.
I began to think back over the last couple of months. I know I had been carrying burdens that were not mine to pick up. I felt as if I went from one crisis management meeting to another. People in my life ceased to be community , but problems I needed to manage. I felt like there were a million questions and I had zero good answers. I had put the ComLife leader hat on so much that it had somehow got permanently glued to my head, and I didn’t know how to get it off. I was overdrawn in my spiritual bank account and no one was making any deposits in. As I continued to accumilate these burdens they became a weight upon me that was about to break me, spiritually and physically.
As God was speaking to me about all this, He began to show me how life had gotten to where it was. Is stuff hard right now? Sure. Have a lot of crazy things happened and have I had to face some tough challenges and decesions? You betcha. However, through the midst of it all, I had forgotten one very important fact:
I am not God.
Good one, Sherlock, you may be thinking. But this is truth that I needed to let sink into the core of my spirit. I would never consciously put in any kind of competition for deity status, but without realizing it, I had taken responsibility for people, for situations and for areas that only God can justly be soverign over. And, by taking those things out of the Lord’s hands and trying to place them in my own, I had not only limited His power in my life, but in the lives of those He has put under my care. And, I was giving the Accuser a platform to do his thing and try to bring shame and condemnation upon me. Of course he can whisper to me that I don’t know what I am doing, that all of this is too hard for me to figure out, and I will never make it work. It’s easy for him to do that when all of those things are TRUE.
So, when I was finally prayed off by the wonderful world race coaches, I set off down the 1st part of the trail almost light-hearted. I began to speak the names of people and situations I needed to release to the Lord out loud. I repented for trying to take position in a place that was only rightfully His. I was enjoying the walk and the revelation that the Lord was giving me. As I got to the final incline, two staff prayed over me for strength to complete the journey. The almost vertical climb on wet leaves left my mind occupied with not tumbling back down the slope. As I neared the top and saw my fellow world race staffmates up there ready to greet us, I stopped to refocus myself. As I did the final climb, I was surprised at the lack of emotions I had. The whole thing just seemed very matter of fact to me. When I kneeled at the cross at the top of the mountain, I put down my log and said a simple prayer of release. Caroline came over to give me a hug. “What did God say?”, she asked. I simply said, “That I am not Him”. “And I am grateful for that”.
While there was no outburst of tears or a gutteral cry of freedom that came with my own personal surrender walk (the guy next to me had a great time at the cross with that, though :), I know something broke in the spirit as I said yes to who He is. And by taking my hands off the wheel, I allow Him to move in ways that I have been crying out for, yet preventing.
I am free.
And so is He.
