Merciful Surrender

Faith While I’m Still in the Valley

Have you ever found yourself in a season where you are genuinely pressing closer to God, and somehow, at the very same time life seems to be pressing harder against you?

You are praying more.

Talking to God more.

Opening your Bible more.

You joined a Bible study, and worship has become less like background music and more like oxygen. You find yourself thinking about God in the middle of ordinary moments that you would have once moved through without a second thought.  Slowly, things begin to change.

You think twice before snapping at the person who always seems to get on your nerves. You notice the banana at the grocery store that somehow didn't scan. There may have been a time when you would have shrugged and thought, “I shop here all the time, they can afford to give me a banana.” But now something inside of you says, No. Not because you suddenly became religious or afraid that God is keeping score, you put it back because you want to know Him. You want your life, even the tiny, unseen parts—to agree with the God you say you love.

Jesus said:  “If you love me, keep my commands.” John 14:15

Somewhere along the way, obedience stops feeling like a list of rules and starts feeling like relationship. You want to see God's face,  want to recognize His voice, and you want your life to become aligned with Him. And then… the car starts breaking down, disease enters your  body, your job becomes uncertain. The bills keep arriving, and suddenly this beautiful journey of surrender begins colliding with the brutal reality of being human.

When Obedience Meets Reality

Maybe you are learning to manage your finances differently. Before, when there wasn't enough money, you reached for the credit card, now you're trying to pay down debt. You're trying to live within your means.  Trying to become a good steward of what God has placed in your hands, but then the car needs another repair, then a medical bill arrive. Something in the house breaks, and suddenly you find yourself staring at numbers that simply do not add up. In your heart is another tension:

I want to give.

I want to be generous.

I want to obey God.

But what happens when you look at what is left and there doesn't seem to be anything left to give? Then the questions start coming.

Am I going through this because I haven't given enough? Should I give anyway and just have faith? But if I don't pay this bill, am I putting myself right back into the financial bondage I have been trying so hard to escape?

It is a difficult place. A very real place.

There are easy spiritual answers people can give when they are not standing inside your circumstances. Real life does not always fit neatly into a five-minute devotional. Bills are real. Medical needs are real. Jobs are real. Cars that won't start are real. Debt is real.

The IFs

If you don't pay the electricity bill, eventually the electricity gets turned off. If you don't buy food, you don't eat. If your body isn't healing, you may need medical care. If you don't repair the car you depend on, you may not have transportation. If your employer requires something of you, ignoring it can have consequences.

This isn't a fantasy world, it isn't a movie where everything resolves itself before the credits roll. It is life, and sometimes faith has to live right in the middle of that reality.

When the Bible Becomes the Only Place I Know to Go

This is where Scripture has become my place to run, and, if I'm truthful, Scripture can also become the place where I wrestle. Because I read: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  Psalm 23:1

And I believe it, but then I look around and think: Lord, I feel like I am lacking in a lot of places right now.

I read:  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”

Psalm 23:4

And then I ask: Are You with me? Because if You are with me, why did every mechanical thing that could possibly go wrong with my car seem to happen at the exact moment I am trying to get out of debt?  If You are with me, why isn't my body healing? Why Am I having to seek more medical care when medical care means more expenses? Why is work so difficult right now? Why does everything feel heavy at once?

Then David continues:  “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4

Comfort me, Lord, because right now I need it. Then: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” Psalm 23:5

A table? Here? In the presence of all of this? The enemies surrounding the table aren't people? It’s fear, financial strain. Pain. Uncertainty. Exhaustion. Stress. The voice telling me that nothing is ever going to change. The temptation to go back to old ways because trusting God feels too uncertain, and still Scripture says there is a table, not after the enemies disappear, in their presence.

“You anoint my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

And there are days when I read those words and wonder: Is my cup really running over?  Is there anointing here? Because I don't see it.

This Is Not the Before-and-After Testimony

I wish I could tell you this blog was written from the other side,  this were the part where I said: "And then God fixed everything.”

The car was repaired, my body healed. The bills disappeared, and  the job situation changed. The money arrived! Everything worked out perfectly, but that's not this story. Not yet, I’m still in it. I'm still in the waiting. I'm walking through the valley, I'm writing this while in the waiting. Maybe that is important? Because sometimes we only hear testimonies after the breakthrough.

We hear the story once it has been cleaned up, organized and packaged into: "This is what happened, and this is what God did.” But what about faith when you don't know what God is doing? What about worship when nothing has changed yet? Now about surrender when the provision hasn't appeared? Trust when you cannot see the next step?

“Lord, Where Else Would I Go?”

There is a moment in John 6 when many  stop following Jesus. Jesus turns to the Twelve and asks whether they want to leave too. Peter answers: “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” John 6:68

Peter didn't say, Lord, I understand everything, or Lord, everything You are doing makes total sense. He essentially said: Where else would we go?

That is where I am right now.  Lord, where would I go? I don't understand everything. I don't know what to do about every problem in front of me. I don't know how every bill will be paid,  what healing will look like. I don't know how every situation will work itself out, but where else would I go? You are God.

Merciful Surrender

Maybe this is what I mean by merciful surrender. Merciful because I am surrendering myself into the hands of a God who is compassionate.

Scripture says: “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.”  Lamentations 3:22–23

Surrender because there are things I simply cannot control, I don't have an extra $500 every time the car needs something. I cannot force my ankles to heal faster. I cannot always change the atmosphere around me. I cannot control another person's behavior. I cannot manufacture provision. I cannot see into the future. I cannot carry every outcome on my shoulders without eventually breaking underneath the weight.

I've tried that before. I've tried figuring everything out myself and the stress crushed every part of my peace. I've solved emergencies with credit and then found myself right back in the bondage I was desperately trying to escape. So surrender is no longer some beautiful, poetic Christian idea to me. Today surrender sounds like: “God, I do not know what to do.”

One of the most honest prayers I pray.

King Jehoshaphat once stood before an impossible situation and prayed: “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12

I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on You.

Faith in the Middle

Hebrews tells us: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Hebrews 11:1

Perhaps faith is not proven when everything makes sense. Faith becomes visible when everything around you gives you reasons to believe God has forgotten you, and you choose to keep turning toward Him anyway.  Not denying reality, but standing in the middle of what is true and saying: There is another truth greater than what I can currently see. God is still God. His character has not changed because my circumstances have. His mercy has not disappeared because I cannot recognize the solution yet.

Psalm 23 never says there is no valley. It says: He walks through it with us.  We do not walk through it alone. Notice the word David uses: through. “Though I walk through the valley...”

The valley was never called home, it was something to walk through.

So This Is Where I Am

I don't have the ending to this story yet. Maybe one day I will write Part Two. One day I will tell you what happened with the car,  with my body, if I ran the 10K,  what happened financially. Maybe I will be able to look backward and recognize God's fingerprints in places where today I can only see uncertainty.

I pray my mouth will  be full testimony, but today, this is the testimony I have:

I am here, seeking Him. Opening His Word, and still talking to Him. Learning obedience, asking questions and crying a lot. I Am still walking. Surrendering, letting Him fight my battles.  Not knowing exactly how everything will turn out,  just learning Who I am surrendering to.

So if you are reading this from your own valley, I won't tell you that I know exactly how your story will end. I will simply sit beside you here and say: I know this place too. The place between the promise and the provision, the prayer and the answer. Between faith and sight, and maybe our prayer today does not have to be wordy.

“Lord, I don't know what to do” but my eyes are on You."

… surrender from the valley… surrender with bills sitting on the counter. Surrender with pain…surrender with tears. Surrender when I cannot see the other side.

Merciful surrender.

Gabby Rodriguez