In Part B, I outline three practical ways to surrender that run counterpoint to the three rational WWJD mistakes I wrote about previously. We can pray in surrender within the moment, or ahead of an upcoming situation, for God to work in at least three key ways.
(If you missed Part 1, please read that first: A Challenge to “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do)? – PART 1 . In that post, I revealed three problems with using a rational perspective to determine WWJD, and presented the solution of The Surrendered Moment).
Surrender Solution #1: Give me your eyes to see what you are seeing.
This is a surrender to God of my own viewpoint, (which is myopic, tainted, and biased), and a plea for God Himself to give light to my eyes that I may have vision that transcends human perspective and perception. In asking this, I don’t expect God to give me perfect spiritual eyesight, but I do expect Him to give me corrective or enhanced sight so that I can experience the moment or the crisis with Him and rely on Him to show me what I need to know.
I must rely on the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 (NIV).
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
Seeing with spiritual eyesight is essential to walking by faith, as we must continually filter our human experience through a recognition of God as sovereign and through a reliance on Him to save us in every way and correct our vision.
John 5:19: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” ESV. (Italics and boldface, mine).
Even Jesus, who has the “mind of Christ” in a way that no one else can, chooses to look to the Father in order to see what the Father is doing, and to do in the moment what He sees the Father doing. You and I can’t see perfectly what God is doing, nor do we have the mind of Christ in the same way that He has it, but we can look for God to inspire our vision and to reveal truth to us that we can’t find on our own.
When we pray for God’s perspective, we may not consciously recognize or understand anything different, but the most important aspect of this is that we have an eye that looks for God spiritually in the moment; an eye that honors God and acknowledges His presence, and that desires to see Him moving.
In the New Testament, we see that God, the Father, gives Jesus, the Son, special insight into a person’s past or private thinking so that He can directly address something very specific. The Spirit is able to cut through outward appearances to reveal truth directly and powerfully. When I’m asked for counsel, my best first response is to silently ask God to give me insight so that I may hear from Him and speak truth that is most needed. This prayer of surrender can be as simple as one heartfelt sentence or even an instantaneous acknowledgment that God is with me to help me help someone else. With a spiritual glance toward God in the room, or a nod in His direction, He catches my meaning and the setting of my heart on Him.
Sometimes I am surprised by the truth that comes out of my mouth in my response, because I am often convicted, instructed, and challenged by it, just as much as the person to whom I am speaking. The content sometimes is more than I could know or understand, and the manner of expression is far better than I could compose on the spot. I marvel when this happens, not at my own thoughts and words, but at God’s wisdom and power, and His expression of mercy and grace to me that He would use such a broken vessel in a redemptive way!
I’m not always cognizant of anything special in my surrendered responses, by the way, and sometimes I may go away thinking that God didn’t show up like what I had hoped, or it might seem that my answer was inadequate. When I catch myself thinking like this, I have to remember God will accomplish what He desires through such moments, and that God’s timing and His ways are better than my own. God can provide another opportunity for that person to hear truth clarified, and it doesn’t have to be through me. It’s actually a relief that the results are up to Him.
How can the LORD help us see more clearly in these situations, to know how to think, or speak, or act? Ask Him, yourself!
Surrender Solution #2: Teach me your ways. Psalm 25:4-5: “Show me your ways, O Lord, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” NIV.
God’s ways are not our ways, but He wants to show us His ways, and we can know more and more of His ways if we are looking for Him. Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”
Sometimes, in my desperation to see God move, I become aware that I have left God behind, and that I have forged ahead to obtain results that I can see immediately. Coasting on my own gifts and talents, I can become too attached to a particular mode of ministry, too presumptuous as to what needs to happen, or too focused on meeting particular goals. Success in ministry can become its own end, and the craving for continued or increased impact can draw us to rely on those methods or gifts that brought results before. It’s a blessing to come to the realization that we have been trusting the trappings of ministry more than we have been trusting God Himself, so that we can make a change in course.
The line is a fine one, and easily danced across and moved around, where we leave off relying on the Spirit to move us and correct us, and instead pick up the work to establish our own heritage within a certain sphere of influence or mode of working. The larger the ministry, the more difficult it is to stay responsive to the Spirit. Each person should look to God to follow Him, and collectively the Church needs to be responsive at a grass roots (down to the individual!) level to the move of the Spirit.
When I look at the movements of Jesus with eyes of flesh, I scratch my head and think that He was often very impulsive, or even wishy-washy. At the wedding of Cana in John 2, His first reaction to His mother’s insistence that He do something about the wine that had run out was to indicate that it was not the right time to reveal Himself by doing miracles publicly. A few moments later, He seems to contradict Himself, and turns the water into wine.
In Mark 7, Jesus at first resists the request of the Syrophoenician woman to heal her daughter of demon possession, and then reversed Himself and healed the daughter after a single repartee from the mother.
I don’t point out these instances to suggest that following God must look impulsive, but we should all recognize that God’s ways are not our ways, and also that God is not limited to acting through prescribed methods nor traditional channels nor historical precedence. We must set our ways aside and make straight paths for the Lord to move when and how He will, and we should seek to be open to God’s leading, even if it looks like we are being detoured from a more well-planned, excellent, or expedient way.
Oftentimes, the Spirit calls us from the path of comfort into unfamiliar, uncharted, (and unplanned) routes and territories. Here, outside of our careful plans, we realize that we can’t control anything, and are wholly dependent on Him. God is not against planning, but if we plan to do anything, let us first plan to follow Him wherever He leads, and over all other plans, remain responsive to His call and command.
Surrender Solution #3: Instruct me what to say and do, and give me your strength to accomplish your will.”
Jesus says in John 12:49-50: “For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that His command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” NIV 1984, (Boldface and italics, mine).
Jesus obeys the Father in WHAT to say and HOW to speak!
There are whole aspects of Jesus’s communication that we are not privy to… His tone of voice, His gestures and body language, His eye contact. Everything He said was commanded by the Father, and every aspect of His delivery was ordered by the Father.
Other translations express these verses more like what is in the ESV: “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.” Jesus seems to be redundant in this version, saying that the Father gives Him the specific words to “say” and to “speak.”
Speaking goes beyond mere content, however, and indeed we understand that we can speak the exact same sentence and change its meaning by emphasizing certain words. If I were to say, “Please give that to me,” my meaning can change based upon my inflection and body language.
If I say, “PLEASE give that to me?” then I’m politely asking you to give that to me. If I say, like my children do sometimes, “PLEEEEEEEEEASE give that to me?”, then I’m begging you to give that to me. If I say, “Please GIVE that to me?” then I’m asking that you would make it a gift with no strings attached, or otherwise differentiating the mode of delivery from another mode (like loaning). If I say, “Please give THAT to me?” then I’m emphasizing that you give me that thing instead of the other things. If I say, “Please give that TO ME,” then I’m emphasizing that you give the thing to me instead of to the other people. The content of what we say is modulated by our manner of speaking and the context of the situation.
Jesus didn’t speak like a robot, but instead, with emotion and body language and inflection, He communicated not only the content that the Father gave Him, (the specific words in order), but He also expressed that content as the Father directed, within the specific context, and to certain people.
Paul describes how we can do this same thing, in Ephesians 6:19-20. He asked for the Ephesians to pray “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. ESV.
Paul asks that God will give Him the specific words when he opens his mouth, and for a manner of delivery that is bold, so that He can speak without fear of saying the wrong thing or being afraid of what the hearers may think. Surprisingly, Paul admits that fear is often with him when he speaks. In 1 Corinthians 2:3-5, Paul emphasizes the mode of expression in which he spoke to the Corinthians in person:
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” ESV.
He mentions here that his message is not of rational human wisdom, and God speaks through Him in the power of the Spirit even though he himself is weak and trembling with fear.
This is what is available to us no matter our personal limitations—any time! God can communicate His Truth through the power and expression of the Spirit! In fact, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the “Spirit of truth,” in John 14:16-17: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” ESV.
Jesus said, in Luke 12:11-12: “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” NIV. This kind of promise is scary, because God tells of a deliverance that happens “at that time.” We are not to expect in these situations that God is going to give us a speech ahead of time to practice, and to perfect the delivery. In an interview or cross-examination, anything prepared could be derailed or redirected, and if our confidence rests on a specific sequence of thought and phrase, we may take our eyes off of the Lord in worry over the performance.
The LORD told Moses in Exodus 4:12, “Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.” Nevertheless, Moses had no confidence that he would be able to say the right thing when the time came, even with the promise from God, and so he asked for God to send someone else. This fear of faltering in speech at an important moment—I know it well, myself. One of my biggest fears in college was the fear of public speaking. God has given me numerous opportunities to trust Him, standing before a crowd to speak, and, though I see that He has come through, time and again, this fear threatens me at every occasion. As I get older, I notice that I’m not as sharp or quick in memory as I was even last year, and I have fear that, if I am put in the spotlight, and many eyes are on me, I will not be strong or persuasive in speech. I may falter, and may not be able to pull up the words that would show themselves as true and bring honor to the LORD. However, GOD Himself is with me. I must rest in HIM. Jesus rested in the Father, Himself, and gave His own mouth to the Father:
John 14:10-11. NIV. “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”
Jesus Himself did not take credit for His words and His actions, but testified that it is God the Father living in Him!
As we surrender our eyes to see what He is seeing, as we submit ourselves to be taught His ways, and as we yield our bodies to speak His words and do His works, we will experience the truly abundant life, and the world will get to see that God the Father is still at work.