I recently attended a Transformation Intensive designed to help churches bring about authentic, deep spiritual transformation in people’s lives.  I am also taking an online course called “The Leader’s Soul.”  One of the major themes of both the conference and the online course is the place of spiritual disciplines/activities that are catalytic for ongoing spiritual growth (growth being defined in terms of increased love for God and increased love for others—see Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 22:37-39)

Today’s assignment had to do with prayer, but it was a particular kind of prayer: a prayer of surrender.  The idea is to surrender your life to God at the beginning of every day.  It’s the old “one day at a time” idea from recovery.  And since today is really all we have, it’s a pretty good place to start.

One person’s practice for daily surrender was to hit the floor every day “knees first.” This was a daily reminder to surrender the day to God—to invite God to live His life through this person.  Kneeling was symbolic of surrender (it’s kind of hard to be cocky and self-absorbed on your knees).

In the coming days I will be experimenting with various ways to do a daily prayer of surrender first thing in the morning.  In the meantime I wrote my own prayer of surrender as a starting point:

Jesus, I am your servant, humbly available to you.  As best I can I surrender this day to you.  Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not here.  So I give you NOW— today.  Please use my life for the glory of Your name and Your kingdom.  Add anything, take anything away…at any cost.  I am Yours.  Use me.

May I not be remembered for physical appearance, professional accomplishments, people I know or crowds I address.  Rather, may I be known for loving You by the way I love and serve others.  

I yield this day to the power and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  May everything accomplished through my simple life bring honor and glory to You, Lord Jesus.  Take my human flaws and failures and use them to remind those who know me that only You are God and I will never be any more than Nick.  Amen. 

I can’t help but wonder about the cumulative effect of a daily prayer of surrender on our lives. I hope you will join me in doing this—simply opening your life to God at the beginning of each day and saying, “May Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth—today, in my life—as it is in heaven.”  

Here’s to the transforming journey of daily surrender…