{"id":4634,"date":"2016-03-29T22:25:29","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T02:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/?p=4634"},"modified":"2016-03-29T22:25:29","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T02:25:29","slug":"sweet-surrender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/?p=4634","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Surrender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/03\/arms_open_by_reachwithyourmind.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4635\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/03\/arms_open_by_reachwithyourmind-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/03\/arms_open_by_reachwithyourmind-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/03\/arms_open_by_reachwithyourmind-1024x766.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was standing in church the other day, trying to intimately connect with Jesus through worship. \u00a0We usually sit in the back on a regular basis (with 3 kiddos that seems to be a necessity at this point). \u00a0I had Ephraim in the car seat beside me and Esther in my arms. \u00a0She is just precious during worship, she claps, she raises her hands, imitating what others do in the worship. \u00a0I love it! \u00a0This specific Sunday, as I was trying my best to focus, I was struck by a distinct picture. \u00a0I was worshiping, I was praising Jesus, doing my best to raise my hands in praise, all the while trying not to drop Esther and every minute or so glancing over at Ephraim to see if he needed anything. \u00a0I felt closer to God, although I was distracted, but God uses that time, no matter how short or how distracted, He uses it. \u00a0While in the midst of this, it hit me that this is often what we do with God. \u00a0We say we give Him everything, having our arms wide open to Him, but we still have&#8230;&#8221;stuff&#8221; in our arms. \u00a0Much like the picture of me holding Esther and lifting my one hand to heaven with an outstretched arm, I was still holding on. \u00a0My whole self couldn&#8217;t fully commit because I would have dropped Esther. \u00a0Now, I&#8217;m not saying it would have been good to drop Esther, you get the metaphor, right? \u00a0OK, moving on&#8230;here&#8217;s the point. \u00a0We can&#8217;t totally commit and surrender our lives when we are still holding on to things. \u00a0We say it, we even sing it (add in I Surrender All track), and we mean it, we really do, but if we are honest, we are still holding things, we are still holding our kids, our jobs, our ministry, our future yet still saying we surrender all. \u00a0We can&#8217;t! \u00a0Believe me, I have tried. \u00a0But the bottom line is there is no better place for all of that &#8220;stuff&#8221; to be that we try and carry but in the arms of Jesus! \u00a0(Can I PLEASE get an AMEN!) \u00a0He is the master of balancing it all and carrying it all and guarding it all. \u00a0Is it easy? \u00a0Of course not. \u00a0Are our lives going to be completely different when we can fully surrender in worship to Him? \u00a0YES! \u00a0When our focus is fully on Him instead of balancing all that is in our arms, WOW! \u00a0What freedom, what sweet surrender. \u00a0What are you holding on to? \u00a0Know that God can do better with it than you can today. \u00a0He is the author of whatever it is. \u00a0Surrender it and embrace all that He has for you!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=4634&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was standing in church the other day, trying to intimately connect with Jesus through worship. \u00a0We usually sit in the back on a regular basis (with 3 kiddos that seems to be a necessity at this point). \u00a0I had Ephraim in the car seat beside me and Esther in my arms. \u00a0She is just &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/?p=4634\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4074],"tags":[24662],"class_list":["post-4634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-reflections"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sweet Surrender - Delplog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/?p=4634\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sweet Surrender - Delplog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was standing in church the other day, trying to intimately connect with Jesus through worship. \u00a0We usually sit in the back on a regular basis (with 3 kiddos that seems to be a necessity at this point). \u00a0I had Ephraim in the car seat beside me and Esther in my arms. \u00a0She is just &hellip; Continue reading &raquo;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/?p=4634\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Delplog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-30T02:25:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/delp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2016\/03\/arms_open_by_reachwithyourmind-300x224.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joel &amp; Kim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joel &amp; Kim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.covchurch.org\\\/delp\\\/?p=4634#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.covchurch.org\\\/delp\\\/?p=4634\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joel &amp; 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