surrender on Trust

When John Kavanaugh, who was a noted and famous ethicist, went to Calcutta, he was seeking Mother Teresa … and more. He went for three months to work at “the house of the dying” to find out how best h...

Sometimes trust takes time. We all love to be in control, but when you start to give some of that up, it's freeing. Start with some of the little things. Give those things up to the Lord.

Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...

You keep us waiting You keep us waiting. You, the God of all time, want us to wait for the right time in which to discover who we are, where we are to go, who will be with us, and what we must do...

Let me share one more lesson I am learning about daily surrender. It concerns the way we relate to others. Daily we encounter people who express views opposite to our own, hold values with which we ca...

One of the greatest struggles we face in this life is the temptation to compare ourselves to others. As Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” But in the final part of ...

Lord—You are good and You are strong. You are faithful and You are loving. All that we have comes from Your hands: Hands that … hold us when we are weak, heal us when we’re wounded, protect us w...

Heavenly Father, our Savior told us, "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it." These are hard words. We confess that we oft...

Leader: Christ is risen! All: Christ is risen indeed! Leader: Light out of darkness! All: Life out of death! Leader: Hope out of despair! All: Power out of surrender! Leader: God, this is your g...

In Book Eight of Confessions , St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Ta...

The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and ou...

In the days of the early church, believers affirmed their faith by saying, “Jesus is Lord.” We give lip-service to that same affirmation, but find it difficult to surrender control of our lives. Inste...

One particularly crafty, if not insidious way a “good works” righteousness can seep into our theology is by positioning faith as the pre-eminent work. We must never forget that faith itself is a...

Heavenly Father, Your love for us is so very evident. Everywhere we look, we see tangible proof of Your great care for us. Yet, when it comes to following You, we confess that we often don’t surrender...

There are two wonderful Greek words that the early church theologians used to describe the Trinity: kenōsis and perichōrēsis. Kenosis is the act of self-giving for the good of another. It is found in ...

God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...

When we surrender our mistaken goal of self-perfection, the life of faith gradually becomes a joyful adventure again. And a funny thing happens: In forgiving ourselves for being imperfect, we find it ...

Gracious God, We build walls to protect ourselves, but it leads to isolation. We make independence the highest value, instead of complete dependence on You. Forgive us for our inability to surrender e...

God gives where he finds empty hands.

There are many who say to the Lord, "I give myself wholly to Thee, without any reserve," but there are few who embrace the practice of this abandonment, which consists in receiving with a ce...

Lord, you have in fact searched us and known us. You know when we rest and when we rise, when we go out and come home. You know our inmost thoughts. And yet even so Lord, even so we turn our backs to ...

Work and let him give the fruits therefore! Rule, and let him prosper it! Battle, and let him give victory! Preach, and let him make hearts devout!”

“A young man came to visit me with a question on his mind. He asked, “I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior, but why has nothing really changed in my life?” I asked him, “Who is running your life?” H...

Intimacy happens as we bring more and more of ourselves into God’s presence. To pray with soul and body means, says Jane Vennard, “praying with all of who we are: our physicality, our emotions, our in...

King of kings and Lord of lords, today I am reminded of your preeminent sovereignty over all things, including me. Psalm 2 calls me to “kiss” you, to acknowledge your authority by submitting myself to...

Surrender—or “abandonment to divine providence,” as it is called in some of the older writings—is the central dynamic of the spiritual life, and retreat offers us many concrete opportunities for pract...

When John Stuart Mill—the influential philosopher and political economist—arrived at Thomas Carlyle's door that evening, his face drained of color, bearing the devastating news that the manuscript...

Surrender your poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers y...

Atonement is secure when life is surrendered, released, set free for a new function…. When a sacrifice was offered, we should see it as a killing of the animal in place of the worshipper and the manip...