From Striving To Surrender

TAMI CHESTER | Faith Story

I grew up in a staunchly legalistic Adventist family where God’s mercy, love and grace were never a part of my theological thought structure. Our family would gather most evenings for family devotions which usually consisted of a passage from one of Ellen G. White’s books. As I grew older, my father would have me read books such as Patriarchs and Prophets, Desire of Ages, and many others and then write book reports on them. Needless to say, the picture of God that became ingrained in my heart, mind, and spirit was one of an angry, judgmental, distant Being who loved to execute revenge on anyone who crossed Him, a God whom I could never fully please nor in whose presence I would be able to stand unless I somehow mysteriously reached a state of perfection. I grew up terrified by the thought of Jesus’ coming, the “end times”, and the persecution I would undergo as an Adventist.

 At the age of 12, I was baptized into the Adventist church. The morning of my baptism, I still remember thinking very clearly to myself that from that moment on I would finally be able to live a perfect life that was pleasing to God so that He would love and accept me. Unfortunately, by 3:00 that afternoon I had a fight with my sister! I cried as I realized I had “blown it” again and was far from perfect. 

The morning of my baptism, I still remember thinking very clearly to myself that from that moment on I would finally be able to live a perfect life that was pleasing to God so that He would love and accept me.

During the next several years I became increasingly despairing. By the time I was 13, I had given up in my heart. I chucked Adventism and anything else that had to do with God or religion. I continued to go through the motions, but my heart was hard and far away. In my later teenage years I began to rebel openly against God and all I had been taught. I figured since God would never accept me the way I was, I wanted nothing to do with Him, either. One day I shook my fist in his face and screamed, “Go ahead, burn me up. I’d rather go to hell than spend eternity with you and a bunch of Adventists!” (I had no real fear of hell, believing that I would burn up in an instant, anyway!). As an adult I left the Adventist church and for many years lived a life that was far away from God. It never occurred to me that I was defiant, rebellious, bitter, or angry towards God. I just knew I didn’t care at all about having anything to do with Him.

Through all life’s circumstances, however, God kept loving me and continued to pursue me. Although I ran from even the mention of His name, He still had a plan for my life. A little over 10 years ago, after much resistance, I finally accepted an invitation to start a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. What joy flooded my heart as I accepted the free gift of salvation paid for on the cross! Little did I know that my troubles were just starting! 

Now that I was “born again” I wanted to do everything right. I set out working to be the “best” Christian I could possibly be. Although I now believed that God loved me and had forgiven my sins (past, present and future), deep in my heart a root of unbelief was still hidden. That unbelief prevented me from being able to completely accept that God loved me JUST THE WAY I WAS, that nothing I did could make Him love me more, and that I couldn’t earn His approval. I would read scriptures that taught this truth; I would say I believed. I even taught others about God’s unconditional love. Yet the truth of God’s love had not yet rooted out my STRIVING.

Those wonderful “S” words!
(SURRENDER and SPIRIT as in the Holy Spirit!)

I finally learned about the Holy Spirit. As an Adventist, the “Holy Ghost” was a spooky, spiritualistic phantom to me, a presence with whom I had better be careful about getting too involved unless I wanted to be seen as one of those bizarre, fanatic “holy roller” types (you know, shouting “Hallelujah’s” and speaking in tongues!). He certainly wasn’t my Counselor, Comforter, Teacher, Guide, or Friend. After being born again, I began to read about the Holy Spirit’s importance in a believer’s life, yet somehow a personal relationship with Him continued to elude me. I was too busy working hard to earn God’s approval. After all, wasn’t pleasing God the most important thing I could put my time and energies toward as a believer? Yet the harder I worked to earn God’s approval, the more church and outreach activities in which I involved myself, the harder I tried to live a holy and righteous life—the more I seemed to fail. My life produced fewer results; I became more frustrated—and finally burnout set in.

One day God began to reveal to me that I had placed His precious Spirit in a place of insignificance and inferiority in my life. Somehow in my mind the Holy Spirit was a “lesser” being, the third person at the bottom of the Trinity “hierarchy”. All that mattered to me was that I please God the Father, because to me He was #1. In spite of my theological misunderstandings and constant STRIVING, God began to reveal to me through His Word that if I would seek to SURRENDER myself to the Holy Spirit, He would transform my life. It was exciting yet scary as I began to realize that God had given me the indescribable privilege and honor of presenting my body to the Holy Spirit to be His “home” here on earth.

Being the thrill seeker I am, I decided to take a chance! A scripture from Romans 12:1 (taken from two different Bible versions) became my daily prayer:

“Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” (The Message)

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (NIV)

I’m done with STRIVING! I now understand that pleasing God requires SURRENDER.

From that day forward I have daily offered all of myself to the Holy Spirit. I now choose to walk in SURRENDER to Him so that He can live through me the life that pleases Him, which in turn is pleasing to God. I’m done with STRIVING! I now understand that pleasing God requires SURRENDER. It’s so simple, yet my wrong understanding of God and His Word had made it so complicated! I now look constantly to the Holy Spirit to teach me, guide me, counsel me, comfort me, empower me, prompt me, and bear much eternal fruit through me. And because of my surrender to Jesus and His Spirit, God IS pleased with me.

I am so grateful and humbled to know Jesus and have the Holy Spirit in charge of my life. My prayer is that you, too, will come to know the fruit that can only come from a fully surrendered life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).† 

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—Republished from Proclamation!, July/August, 2005.