“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
— Luke 22:42
As I continue thinking about eternity and what it means to walk the narrow way with Jesus, I keep coming back to one word:
Surrender.
Jesus gave us the perfect example of what surrender looks like in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus knew what was about to happen.
He knew He was going to be betrayed, beaten, mocked, rejected, and crucified. He knew the suffering that was ahead of Him.
And yet, in the garden, He prayed:
“Not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Think about that.
Jesus surrendered His will to the Father.
If Jesus Himself willingly submitted to the Father’s will, how much more should we be willing to surrender ours?
Surrender Isn’t Always Easy
I think sometimes we have the wrong idea about surrender.
We may think surrender means that everything will suddenly become easy. But Jesus’ surrender led Him directly toward the cross.
Surrender doesn’t always mean the circumstances change.
Sometimes surrender means we change our response to the circumstances.
It means trusting God even when we don’t understand.
It means obeying when we would rather go another direction.
It means letting go of our plans and saying, “Lord, I want Your will more than I want my own.”
I’ve had times in my own life when I’ve had to wrestle with what I wanted versus what God wanted. And I’m still learning.
Following Jesus is a lifelong process of surrender.
What Are We Holding On To?
Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is:
What am I still trying to control?
Is it my future?
My plans?
My finances?
My relationships?
My career?
My children?
My dreams?
Sometimes we say we have surrendered everything to God, but there are still areas of our lives that we want to hold onto.
Jesus calls us to something deeper.
He calls us to surrender.
Not because He wants to take something good away from us, but because He knows that His will is better than ours.
The Road to Life
The narrow road we talked about in Part 1 isn’t simply a road we believe in.
It’s a road we walk.
And walking that road requires us to surrender our will to Jesus.
The highway of holiness we talked about in Part 2 isn’t something we walk in our own strength.
We walk it by surrendering ourselves to Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us.
Day by day.
Decision by decision.
Step by step.
Sometimes that means saying no to ourselves so we can say yes to God.
Jesus said:
“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
— Luke 9:23
That is the way of discipleship.
That is the narrow way.
That is surrender.
And when we surrender our will to God, we can trust that His plans are greater than ours.
So today, my prayer is simple:
“Father, not my will, but Yours, be done.”
Whatever You ask of me, help me obey.
Whatever I need to surrender, give me the strength to let go.
Whatever road You place before me, give me the courage to keep walking.
Because I don’t want to simply say that Jesus is Lord.
I want Him to truly be Lord of my life.
Not my will.
Yours.
And I believe that when we surrender our lives completely to Christ, we are exactly where we need to be—walking forward in Him, through Him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stay steadfast, family.
Keep moving forward.
Not our will, but His will be done.
