In many ways, you still want to set your own agenda. You act as if you have to choose among many things, which all seem equally important. But you have not fully surrendered yourself to God’s guidance. You keep fighting with God over who is in control.

                                                                                                   —Henri Nouwen

I grew up fighting. I got in fights at school, at summer camps, and in my home. The ones within my family were the hardest. My father was a demanding perfectionist who was very hard to please. He had a propensity toward name-calling. I was consistently referred to as being “stupid,” “fat,” “no good,” and other words that really cannot be repeated here. I learned to fight back. If he called me “stupid,” I headed to the file that contained my report cards and showed them to him, retorting, “Stupid people don’t get these grades!” I would then be grounded for the weekend, but I didn’t care—fighting made me feel as if I still mattered and had control.

My tendency to be a fighter did not go away the day I asked Jesus to be my Savior. I hear stories of people who trust Christ, and instantly all their nasty habits just evaporate. That certainly was not the case for me. God’s grand plan for conforming me to the likeness of his Son involved a long process of my learning to surrender to his will and not fight for my own. It has taken time—time in his word, time in prayer, time in confessing, time in repenting. How has God changed your life?

The New Testament character, Saul, was a fighter, too—bent on destroying the new Christian church. He was known for his brutal ways with men, women, and children. It was his life mission to defend traditional Judaism with intimidation and violence. But God had another plan and pulled off an amazing miracle by saving this fiery crusader and channeling his passion into the furtherance of the gospel. There is not a great deal recorded in scripture about how God developed him through a transformation process, but almost immediately we see the same determination and fervor, but this time to preach Christ. He had a new Master he surrendered to, and his whole life changed, even his name, now Paul.

My changes were not quite as dramatic but certainly as life-changing. The process isn’t finished, but God is teaching me to surrender to love, to put my dukes down at the pierced feet of the one who hung for me—out of love. Love has softened me, quieted me, and helped me to rest in God’s good will for my life.

Who is in control of your life—yourself or God? Do you want to live out your plan or God’s? Read John 15. To surrender is to abide in or make our home in him. The better we know him, the easier it is to simply abandon ourselves to his care.

“Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.”

                                                                                                                                                      —Psalm 36:10