S8P5 – The journey of Psalm 143: the yielding

Psalm 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

The first step to living a life dedicated to God is surrender. While our human nature might induce us to step into the waters slowly, God does not call us to this kind of gradual submission. He calls us to give Him everything, to love Him with all of our faculties, to dedicate all we have to Him [Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27-28]. He does not desire that we dip our toes in His eternal greatness; He desires that we take the plunge from the outset.

I think there is a very logical reason why God wants us “all in” right from the start, and I think David’s words in this passage illustrate this reason. Here, David is at his end. He has come to the place where a man realizes he has no power, and only God can save him. This can be a tough pill to swallow for those of us who take pride in our independence. But if God can get us to relinquish all control to Him at the start of the relationship, then these moments might not be such a shock to our systems. It is when one’s walk begins with merely dabbling in the things of Jesus Christ that the call for complete surrender stops a man in his tracks. The hope is that the acceptance of salvation comes with the full relinquishment of a life, which makes surrender an expectation and a norm.

David tells God in this verse that he has put his trust in Him, which means he entrusts God with his whole life. One cannot trust God a little or mostly. This is an all or nothing affair. If you have called on Jesus to save you, the bargain was His life for yours. This means your whole life. God is just in requiring nothing less, and we are wise to accept this gracious offer. Father, bring us to a place of complete surrender to You now, and lead us in the practice of daily submitting ourselves to Your plan and Your will.