I Surrender All

I've been reading in the Book of Joshua for the past couple of weeks, and today's final chapter stops me in my tracks.

Joshua 24:

¹³ "I handed you a land for which you did not work, towns you did not build. And here you are now living in them and eating from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.

¹⁴ "So now: Fear God. Worship him in total commitment....

From my prayers in response...

"YOU have given me everything... life, breath, food, home, friends, health, my whole story. I can take no credit whatsoever. I want to fear you and worship you in total commitment. That is my sole calling. Praise you Father. Thank you for your amazing provision -- down to the tiniest detail. I would like to think down deep in my bones, and not just on the surface of my heart and words, that I know that you did it all. May I not take any credit personally, verbally, or emotionally. YOU ALONE are God. I am completely dependent, completely unable to continue without your power.

I am listening to I Surrender All.

All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live,

I surrender all
I surrender all
All to Thee my blessed Savior
I surrender all

All to Jesus I surrender
Lord I give myself to Thee
Fill me with your love and power
May your blessing fall on me...

I give you my heart and mind. I hear this song and I am so moved and stunned. I remember singing this song at the top of my lungs in my car in 1997 through stinging tears as I realized I would have to let go of the plans I had for my life....

The greatest, gentlest kindness of all is that you are patiently allowing me to even think that I'm "giving" it back to you. I never had any of these things in the first place.... The process is one not so much of giving it all back to you as it is admitting that I have never had anything except you. As Job said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I'll return'...."

Joshua 24:

^19-20 Then Joshua told the people: "You can't do it; you're not able to worship God. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won't put up with your fooling around and sinning. When you leave God and take up the worship of foreign gods, he'll turn right around and come down on you hard. He'll put an end to you—and after all the good he has done for you!"

²¹ But the people told Joshua: "No! No! We worship God!"

²² And so Joshua addressed the people: "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen God for yourselves—to worship him."

And they said, "We are witnesses."

²³ Joshua said, "Now get rid of all the foreign gods you have with you. Say an unqualified Yes to God, the God of Israel."

²⁴ The people answered Joshua, "We will worship God. What he says, we'll do."