The Lies We Sing?

I surrender all
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

Jesus, I surrender
Jesus, I surrender
I draw nearer, I fall down
Master, be my Savior
Be my shelter, be my Go

I’ve sung and prayed these words thousands of times and I thought that I meant them. Nevertheless, I am confronted with the fact that I told God my life is in His hands, yet when He called me on it I can hardly cease asking to be released from this place. Are the words that I sing just lies? We say that He is the one in charge, so why do we so constantly question Him. Why is that our time of being close to God consists of telling Him how he may lead us.

Perhaps, this discrepancy can best be illustrated by the prayers of commitment that we pray. I can’t tell you how many times I have given and heard a call for salvation or recommitment to God. I know that each and every time I lead that prayer, I prayed about forgiveness and repentance of sin. I know that many times I talked about Christ as savior, and I think I talked about Him being Master. The very fact that I can’t clearly remember taking about the submission that goes with salvation shows how little I have really valued it. Let me ask what speaks more of a recommitment; turning from sin or submission to God. To me submission to God encompasses following His commands, but even an abhorrence of wrong doing does not equate submission to God.

Paul said that he was a bond-servant to Jesus. How foreign that concept is to the modern Christian. If we are servants how can we spend so much time dictating to God and so little, if any, listening to him. If we are Christians how can we possibly balk at being commanded to serve the Master (not to mention serving someone else).

The bottom line is this; we are servants of the Master. He commands us and He places us where He desires. That is what I signed on for when I committed my life to God. How dare I complain that God would take serious the commitment I made to Him? However, there is good news; a bond servant is not paid wages, they do not have lives apart from the Master, they do not even have rights, but they are provided for. The Master takes on responsibility to feed, clothe, shelter, protect and in all necessary ways provide for the servant. I can rest in servitude to Christ, there is freedom in bondage.