Autumn
For far too long I felt God calling me to surrender certain areas of my life to Him and I chose to disobey…
Autumn.
The time of year when the leaves let go, come loose, and float away to the ground where they cover the floor in a magnificent golden carpet. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the leaves died, went crispy, and never fell? I have… I’ve seen it happen too. In my life as well as in a tree in our garden.
The tree is the perfect visual picture. For my 12th birthday we wrapped a cable around the trunk as part of the zip-line that ran across our garden. The trunk kept growing, but fast forward about 10 years, and this poor tree was obviously struggling. Even before Autumn came around, all the branches above the cable would be full of dead leaves. By spring, many of those very same leaves were still there, holding on, and leaving little room for new growth. The poor tree had been properly strangled, with the cable buried deep under layers of bark. We initially thought the tree might continue growing around it and survive. What did we know of trees anyway? So, we left it. And every year those branches looked sadder and sadder. It was dying.
The other day while a friend of ours was visiting, he commented on the poor state of the tree – a sight we’d grown accustomed to. That’s when we realised that if we didn’t change something, this tree would surely die. We snapped into action to free it of its strangler! This was quite a wrestle, but we eventually pried the cable out, leaving a big scar and groove that may show for a very long time.
Autumn: a necessary season of life.
The tree: a picture of my life.
The cable: me choosing my way.
My way… If I had things my way, I would never have grown up. I would still be little-girl-me, holding onto what once was and missing out on all the blessings I’ve tasted in my life since then. My way. It holds onto what’s nice here and now. It is comfortable and afraid of the unknown. My way has always been scared to let go… because what if nothing more comes? What if new leaves never grow? My way is naturally selfish, prideful, and easily deceived. My way is also broken and sinful, disobedient, and dying without Christ. My way needs to change - it needs a new captain that is not me. My way needs Jesus.
For far too long I felt God calling me to surrender certain areas of my life to Him and I chose to disobey. I would pray and ask God to take all of me and use me. I wanted a life sold out for Christ, but there was a problem. I was trying to do God’s will in my own strength and my own way. I took the dreams, gifts, and relationships that He’d given me, and I’d put my hope in them, instead of in Christ. I gave him all the things that were easy to let go of. But I gripped tightly to what I held dear to my heart, unwilling to trust the one who gave them to me.
Misplaced hope caused me to try to control my world.
When we become Christians and give our lives to Christ, we are doing just that… choosing to surrender every part of ourselves to Him. He becomes King. KING and LORD. This means that He calls the shots. He gets to choose… We willingly surrender to Him because “my will” is dying and in “His will” we find life. My mother taught me that you cannot partially obey. Just a little bit of disobedience is disobedience. This is what I needed to learn.
There was a moment in time last year when my hope came crashing down around me as my dreams, having become “god,” got tipped over. My own choices and actions had brought me to a place of such brokenness and had hurt so many around me. Our Gracious King opened my eyes to see just how “dying” those branches of my life were… those branches that were separated from His life by my disobedience. God allowed me to taste the bitterness and emptiness that came from my choice to walk outside of him. What I saw in my life alarmed and horrified me, as I’d been telling myself I was on the right track, and wilfully ignoring what I knew God was saying to me. Just like our friend had pointed out the dying branches we’d ignored, Jesus so lovingly pointed out the dying branches in my life. This was humbling. And I suddenly became aware of a choice before me.
DEUTERONOMY 30:19-20
“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life.”
Choosing life and obedience meant letting go of a whole lot that had been a beautiful gift from God in the last season. Much of this letting go was truly heart-breaking for me! But for new life there must be a proper death. Complete surrender. I began to understand what Romans 6 means, when it speaks about us dying with Christ. And in Luke 14, Jesus talks about the cost of being a disciple. Daily. He says, “Don’t begin until you count the cost.” This past year I have tasted some more of that cost. It has looked like surrendering my dreams, hopes, future… trusting that I’d find those in Him. It looked like surrendering my will and the old season. The biggest part of that, for me, meant surrendering a serious relationship with my boyfriend of over 3 years. Much of this was so difficult, with many moments of tears and deep pain, struggle, and prayer. And to be perfectly honest, part of me felt like I was dying inside. Death is the end of something old.
I was always so afraid of this part: getting older, letting go, dying.
In the months that followed I asked myself, too many times to count, why I’d chosen this route of surrender. Often this question was difficult to find an answer for, simply because a lot that God asked me to surrender had been so wonderful in its season. “Why give it up, Lord?” The answer was straightforward. Because holding onto it all, would mean living outside of His will for my life. And after Him showing me such mercy, kindness, and grace, I couldn’t bear to imagine living a life of destruction outside of Him. My only safety is found in Him. I had to let go, just because He said so. We often think God needs to fit into OUR picture of life. But really, there is no life outside of Him. We don’t deserve God in our lives… and we don’t deserve to live in God’s life. Yet, He made a way!
Simple, radical obedience. It should be our only appropriate response.
I like to describe the past year as my King and Healer doing heart surgery in my life. He began to cut out all the disobedience and all the death that had resulted. He stepped into a critical situation and helped me remove the strangling cable of disobedience and began to wash my life with forgiveness and healing. In that place of surrender and tender-brokenness, I experienced SO much peace amidst the pain. I felt him holding my heart which seemed so bare as I let the “leaves” fall. This required faith that at many times I sorely lacked. I watched as the Lord put the right people around me in the right moments to help me along and to stand in faith with me. And I spent many days running back to him for answers, truth, and hope. My heart was vulnerably open in his hands and I had to trust that He would put all the right pieces together, stitch me back up, and hold me through my pain. He is faithful, He is gentle, He is gracious and kind… but He is also King and Lord over my life.
Somehow, He’s taken my mess-ups, mistakes, my wrong choices… and he’s turning even those ashes to beauty. My story bears the scars of my struggle to surrender, but our Lord wastes nothing in His work of redemption. I am still on this journey… I think we all are. And I now know more than ever before the truth of this scripture:
John 15:4-5
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me... Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
Apart from Him I can do nothing. In Christ there is freedom and fruit, joy, and life! I have learned that following Jesus does come at a cost. But I have counted the cost. It’s worth it!