Surrending Again seems to be a very apt title for the subject. Last week I looked at some of the basics of surrendering and this could be considered a sequel to that post, but the title also bears the weight of what we are called to do day after day. Surrender is not a one time thing, but something we do on a continual basis. We surrender in the best of times, when things are good and perfect every step of the day. When relationships are what they should be, when there is money in the bank, when the kids say please and thank you, and when we have been faithful to God and have no regrets. We surrender our praise for the goodness and we surrender our will so that we might break through our comfort and be of some help to a world where good and right are not the norm. We surrender in the dark times when there has been conflict with loved ones and neighbors, when the negative balance in your checking account just hit you like a mac truck, when the kids are screaming, and when we have a span of days where we wander if we have done what God wants and if things are bad because we are bad. We surrender… again.
Hannah was a woman who tasted the good and bad, the bitter and the sweet, and surrendered in it all. Her story is found in 1 Samuel 1-2. Essentially here is the plot: One man, Elkanah. Two wives, Penninah and Hannah. Penninah had kids Hannah didn’t. What this meant on a day to day basis was that Penninah got special treatment, Hannah felt the sting of her barrenness, and meanwhile Elkanah, being the innately intelligent man he was would say things like, “Hannah, why are you crying? Ain’t I better than 10 sons?” (literally, he said that, 1 Sam 1:8). Now in this culture to be barren was to be looked down upon, to be thought of as worthless, and sometimes to be shunned by God. Hannah was in a dark place, a place where value was removed from her because of what she couldn’t produce. For some people they feel this sting because they can’t produce a pay check, or a balanced checkbook, or a stable relationship, a guilt-free record, a sober past, a social standing, or 100 friends on Facebook. For Hannah it was because she was childless. She felt it in her husband’s treatment, and in the snide remarks of the ‘other wife’ (1:6).
When we find our lives in a place like this we have two options, we can surrender to our circumstances and become bitter, cynical, lazy, or worse. We can even make excuses why we surrender to our circumstances. And before long we sound like the greatest debater in the world because we have a reason for every subtly wicked behavior we have and we live imprisoned to our self-deception. The book of 1 John calls this walking in darkness. Our other option is to surrender to God. And the good news about this option is that faithfulness to God merits no excuses, no excuses in our victories and no excuses in our failures. That last bit may sound a little odd, but the reality is that even a life that is totally surrendered to God is gonna have mistakes that must be corrected and potholes that need to be filled. When we are surrendered to our circumstances we make excuses for them, because after all we are a slave to our situation. When we are surrendered to God we admit our faults, correct what we should, and move on. Surrender to God looks like humility and shapes us into humble people. In fact it is impossible to be surrendered to God without humility (James 4:5-7).
Hannah came to God with humility. She knew that whether or not she had a child was in God’s hands and if she were to have a child he/she would not hers, but ultimately would be God’s. In verses 9-11 Hannah submits to God’s will and surrenders her ‘yet to be conceived’ child to God and promises that he will be raised as a servant of God at Shiloh. The resident priest, after he accuses her of being drunk (seriously, its a good story, you need to read it), tells her that God will answer her prayer. So Elkanah and his family go home, nature takes its course and soon Hannah has a son. And at the end of chapter 1 we read some of the most heart-wrenching and life-fulfilling words, ‘She left him there for the Lord’. She left her only son for the Lord. She surrendered her greatest desire to God, because surrender to God is ultimately the only desire worth having. The first half of chapter 2 is then one of the greatest songs of praise to God. When we surrender it all our hearts are completely satisfied in God’s presence, resting in His love, working for His glory, and trusting completely in His word, no matter what the circumstance. Hannah’s life: another call to surrender again.
Recently I had the opportunity to borrow a friends very old little blue Mazda truck (much like the one in the picture to the right, just not as new looking). I love driving old clunker type cars… its an adventure! In this truck you had to turn the bright lights switch on overnight because when left in ‘regular light’ mode the lights will mysteriously come on by themselves, which resulted in a few dead batteries for me. One of the gifts that this old truck gave was that I was more apt to explore new musical genres. This was because most of my usual radio station favorites had too much bass for the little speakers in the truck to handle. This in turn resulted in the dial finding a resting spot on a more twangy radio station, WDVX (89.9). I had always assumed that this station was just straight up country redneck music because I only saw the call letters on the license plates on old pickup trucks. But as it turns out, this station plays country, blue-grass, americana and a little southern rock. And it all sounded great on the crappy little speakers in the ol’ Mazda truck. But the point is that it got me to look outside my usual radio stations and genres and discover some good music and potent lyrics that I wouldn’t have otherwise found like 
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