Willing to Surrender... or Ready, Willing and Able...
Light For Life May 2005
In order to move ahead in many areas of our lives we need to be ready to ‘let go’ to do it – surrender. I think that surrender is the starting point to change, so we need to arrive at surrender first and that is where ‘ready, willing and able’ come into it. It is a saying we all know but those three words aren’t just a saying, they also form a process that actually encapsulates biblical principals that work! Once we realise that not surrendering means we are stuck in a cycle of frustration we begin to find ways to let go, which in turn brings us to the point of ready, willing and then able. Surrender also requires trust, and we CAN trust God, so when the surrender is to God or His plans we can know we are in the best hands.
To be ready, willing or able you have to start somewhere, its not always with enthusiasm from the get go but there has to be a start! Let me put that into sentences you can relate to, it might sound something like this:
Ready: “Okay, lets talk about it”
Willing: “I will do it if you will help me”
Able: “I can do that”
In the day-to-day things of life ‘ready’ is equivalent to ‘I surrender’. The media, via television, the movies, the news and even in stories both real and fiction, portray the word surrender with a visual meaning that isn’t always what the word really means when we are talking about us and God. Some of these visuals of surrender are of flying a white flag, hands in the air, forced into it, crying, panicky, a child stomping their feet, ‘I give up’, ‘You win’, ‘Only because I have to!’ Is this true surrender?
In the kingdom of God – surrender resembles something quite opposite - laying something down at the feet of God, trusting Him, there is no strain or fight, peace comes, it feels so right, the struggle is over, we quit the fight and let God do what needs to be done; even though sometimes we do get in His way and take the long way around. First things first – first we need to be ready to surrender before the actual surrender, then follows willingness to surrender, then we can do it – we are able to surrender! It’s the same with anything; we need to be willing to do it before we can actually do it. It is like a precursor, you can’t surrender without willingness to do so.
Surrender by its very meaning suggests the offering of free will. Once we come to the point of being willing to surrender then we get the peace to be able to surrender. Having said that, willingness is not something that always comes to us easily, it may come at a price, or come with a cost. Surrender is an attitude of the heart, and God always sees our hearts and loves it when He can see that our hearts are pure.
‘Ready, willing and able!’ That is how the saying goes, but how often are we ‘ready, willing and able’? That is where it all comes back to surrender; surrender gets the ball rolling, and surrender is being ‘Ready’. You wont be ‘able’ till you are willing, and you wont be willing until you are ready.
Do you need to get ready?
Love
Cam
Word For Life
READY: Prepared and fit for use, willing to do something, the state of being ready.
WILLING: Eager, ready, which is done or given gladly.
ABLE: Having the power, skill, knowledge, time etc necessary to do something.
The Word
Philippians 4:13
I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal
to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self sufficient in Christ's sufficiency).
