From the Pastor

“Sweet Surrender” 

 There’s a great scene in the movie, “The Apostle,” starring Robert Duvall. Duvall plays a Pentecostal preacher who’s gone astray and one night he’s praying so loud his neighbors can’t sleep. One calls to complain and the preacher’s momma says, “Ever since Sonny’s been an itty bitty boy my son’s been talkin’ to the Lord. Sometimes he talks to the Lord and sometimes he yells at the Lord, and tonight he just happens to be yelling at the Lord.” 

 One of the Bible’s great images of prayer is wrestling with God. Jacob wrestled with God in Genesis 32. Paul makes reference to wrestling in the New Testament. If you have ever wrestled in your life, you know how exhausting it can be. It will leave you with a soreness all over your body that not even Motrin can fix. When we wrestle with God, it might also leave us sore and tired, — but we are giving God access to our soul. When we wrestle with God, there is no phoniness. It is an honest, gut-level sharing with our Father. And as wrestlers with God, we may even find ourselves partners with God, -- as he shapes us and molds us into what He wants us to be and do. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done,” it is our sweet surrender. 

 Now I’m not saying it’s easy to surrender to God. I am simply saying it is worth it. Why? Because it is through our surrender to God’s will that we experience His power in our lives. May it be so for each and every one of you.  

 Pastor John