What does it mean to surrender a loved one to God? Does it mean you turn your back and walk away?
No, certainly not. Surrendering does not mean abandoning. It does not mean you no longer care.
Surrender is motivated out of love — such deep love for the person that you are willing to get out of the way and let God sit in the driver’s seat. Admit it: with us in the driver’s seat, things weren’t going quite so well. There were just too many things we were powerless to control.
Surrender is choosing to yoke up with Jesus.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
Surrender requires a profound trust in God. Trust that He will do a better job in the driver’s seat than we were doing. Trust that He has our loved one’s best interests at heart, that His heart is inclined towards them. Trust that He knows what He is doing, He knows every moment of the future, and that He never stops working. Trust that even if it may appear that He has forgotten them, He has never taken His hand off them.
For you have made the LORD, my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place.
No evil will befall you,
Nor will any plague come near your tent. Psalm 91:9-10
I hear her heart’s cry. My heart cries out likewise. It certainly appears that evil has befallen us, our families. That we have been abandoned and unprotected. I look at my life, at your lives, full of pain and hardship, and I wonder, is God really working for our good? Is He really protecting us?
I am thinking of a parallel verse from 1 John:
… He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. 1 John 5:18 NASB
And in the Amplified:
… the One Who was begotten of God carefully watches over and protects him [Christ’s divine presence within him preserves him against the evil], and the wicked one does not lay hold (get a grip) on him or touch [him]. 1 John 5:18 AMP
It sure looks like evil has befallen us. That the evil one has gotten his putrid hands on us and our families.
Let’s look up this word touch, lay hold, get a grip on. It is haptomaiTherefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Looking through eyes of the flesh, we may see lack of God’s protection. But looking with eyes of God, we will see the eternal weight of glory.