“I Surrender All” is a hymn that we sang in church from as far back as I can remember. Once we had exhausted all its verses, especially during the altar call of a revival service, we would softly sing the chorus on repeat. As a young person, the song always carried a mournful tone for me. It was the devil, I’m sure, who made me feel as if truthfully declaring “I surrender all” to God would mean one thing: From that moment on, though I might hate my life, at least I’d be counted among the righteous! 

(Right now I’m smiling, because I realize that the paragraph I just wrote has probably raised curiosity, if not terror, in the minds of any readers who aren’t familiar with this classic hymn! Here’s a link to the hymn on YouTube, in case you’d like to listen.) 

All these years that I have now walked getting ever closer to Jesus, I see how horribly skewed my thinking towards that song had been. It turns out it wasn’t at all about reluctant surrender to a God whose love for me depended on my behavior! No longer does the song carry for me a reticent relinquishment of rights. Instead, the song has become a beautiful expression of a trusting heart to our faithful King.

This morning as I listened, the Lord captured my heart once again with a picture He dropped into my mind. This is what I journaled to Him:

Lord, as I listen to this old hymn, I remember how almost mournful it felt as we sang it in church when I was young. Somehow I missed the joy of surrender! I focused on the surrender, yet somehow the sweetness found there eluded me. Surrender to my all-loving, all-powerful God is only truly brought to You when carried by my own love and trust. In surrender to You, whose plans for me are only and always good, there is an anticipation of Your blessings “falling on me”. There is the treasure of daily living “in Your presence”! 

The song says, “Worldly pleasures all forsaken…”. When I heard those words this morning, I pictured the Garden of Eden, and the serpent tempting Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Oh Lord, You whispered to my heart that the world’s “pleasures” are nothing more than the fruit You told Your children not to touch or eat. Had they “forsaken” the fruit, they would have remained in the garden full of delight! They would have lived in the ever-present joy, provision and fellowship of the Lord! They gave up the blessedness of Your garden for a “pleasure” that satan had tempted them to believe would make them wise, and like God, know good and evil.

Surely the idea of knowing evil must have carried with it a sense of foreboding. Yet whether or not it did, they chose to take and eat that forbidden fruit. They chose not to “forsake the worldly pleasures”.

Lord, help me to never forget this picture You’ve blessed me with today. When the devil tries to tempt me to do what I know You’ve said no to, help me remember when Eve exchanged the pleasure of living in Your delightful garden for the “worldly pleasure” of forbidden fruit. And then, Lord, give me grace, each and every time I’m tempted, to flee from whatever that “worldly pleasure” may be, and run to Your embrace and lovingly sing, “I surrender all!”