Have you stayed overnight at someone’s house before? What do you expect when you stay at someone’s house?

My book club is reading “I Surrender All” by Priscilla Shirer.

In her intro, she recounts a time when she was traveling with a few other speakers to a conference. Instead of staying at a hotel, a local resident opened her home to the speakers. It was a sprawling, beautiful mansion and they were very impressed upon arrival. Once inside, however, they needed to:

• Take off their shoes immediately (fair)
• Not walk on the imported rug that was on the floor walkway
• Not bump into the imported wooden wall in the elevator
• Not sit on or use the comforter on the beds (decoration only)

Their host left them with a cheery “Make yourselves at home!”

How “at home” can you make yourself when you’re not allowed to touch or be in different spaces?

She goes on to draw the analogy between this example and how we often invite God into our lives, but don’t surrender full access to our beliefs, careers, relationships, ambitions, dreams, etc. We welcome Jesus as Savior but don’t surrender to Him as Lord.

We often want more peace, more balance, more contentment, more joy, etc…. Matthew 6:33 says to seek first His kingdom and “all these things” will be added unto you.

It’s not us doing more – the way forward is to surrender more to God.

Our challenge today is to think about an area where I’m inviting God into my beautiful “home” but not actually letting him relax and be at home? What does it mean in your life to be fully surrendered to Him and what maybe is an area that you’ve inadvertently held back? Invite God to be the Lord of our Life and not just a Savior of our eternal soul. Surrender to God all of us.

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