“Isaiah! You did not put your legos away when I told you. Go sit on your bed. Now!”
Four-year-old Isaiah stood at the bottom of our narrow
staircase, hands on hips, eyes slivers of granite, blond hair curling over
forehead. He glared up at his Daddy’s six foot, one inch frame, stomped like a
young bull preparing to charge, and snorted:
“I’m not gonna
sit. I’m gonna stand!”
Daddy-Jon leaned down and squeezed Isaiah’s shoulders up to his chin, lifting his body till his bare feet arched above the carpet. Jon said slow: “No. You will march upstairs and sit!”
Hanging from Jon’s grip, toes now grazing the carpet, Isaiah
growled: “I’m gonna stand!”
From my front-row seat on the living room couch, I watched my
four year old dangle from his Daddy’s grip, helpless, like a mouse caught in a
cat’s paw, and suppressed the urge to laugh. Jon stared into Isaiah’s bullish
face as he swung his taut little body up the stairs: “Oh, son. You will sit!’
Moments later, Isaiah sat on his bed wailing: “Fine! I’m
sitting!” and Jon walked back into the living room saying: “What makes a four
year old think he can defy me and win? I mean, seriously, I’m four times his
size!”
Why does a dependant child defy a loving Daddy who desires
to do him good, not harm, all the days of his life?
In Isaiah’s words: “I want to stand!” He thinks he knows better than Daddy.
And adults—we’re not much different. We grow out of
foot-stomping defiance and into stubborn refusal to submit to Father-God’s plans
for our lives.
Rather than surrender to Him, we say “I’m gonna do it my
way!” Like Eve in the Garden, we deceive ourselves into thinking God is
withholding good things—delightful fruit. So we give God the middle finger
while attempting to satiate our soul-bellies. We buy into the delusion that we
can control life, that we’re good at playing God.
But after weeks, days, years of trying to control the
uncontrollable, our souls bloat with emptiness. Then, like our mother Eve, we
finally take a good look at ourselves and see who we really are—naked, weak,
human.
“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking,
still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the
end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with
God's work within us. ” (A.W. Tozer)
It’s time to stop playing God.
To cease covering our naked humanity with mere Bible talk
and outward acts of piety.
It’s time to lay our very lives at the foot of the cross,
Giving our Husbands,
Our Sons and Daughters,
Our Mother’s and Father’s, to Him.
Yielding our bodies, jobs, friends, money, to Him.
Offering our painful past, our present, our uncertain future,
as a living sacrifice,
Allowing Him to satiate our thirsty souls, calm our fears.
It’s time to sit in surrender, saying with four-year-old
Isaiah:
“Fine! I’m sitting! Your will be done!”
Not with fist-clenching resignation,
But open-handed, seeking the face of our good Father,
Trusting Him to pen our story of grief and celebration
Into a Beautiful testimony of joyful submission.
Because it’s only when you sit in surrender that you truly
live.
Submit yourselves,
then, to God.
Resist the devil, and
he will flee from you. 8
Come near to God and he
will come near to you.
Humble yourselves
before the Lord,
and he will lift you up.
(James 4: 7-8, 10).
