Surrender Your Mind and Heart to God

 

Brandi grew up in a very loving Christian home and she always wanted what her parents had. They were not rich by any stretch, but her mom and dad were hardworking and built a nice life for themselves and their family. Out of their four children, Brandi was pegged as always being a little on the wild side. Her first year of college was non-stop partying, and after probation for poor grades her freshman year, she never went back. Eventually, she got a job at the post office, and when she was almost 26, she met Joe. To say that he was a stabilizing force in her life is an understatement. He reminded her so much of her father and once they married, Brandi’s life became the dream she had always wanted.

They both dreamed of having children, but Brandi had a challenging time getting pregnant. After her thirtieth birthday, she finally gave birth to their first and only child, Jayden (who they affectionately called Jay), and they thought their world was complete. Brandi had her casual glasses of wine, and sometimes overdid it a little, but for the most part, she left her wild partying days in the past. Their lives were very content, and it wasn’t until Jay’s last few years of high school that Brandi noticed her husband was more preoccupied and quieter than usual. Jay was heavily involved in high-school sports, and Brandi was the quintessential high-school footballer mom. She never missed a game, attended most practices, and cheered him on like no other. Everything in her world revolved around Jay.

Their son received a full-ride scholarship, and three-months into Jay’s freshman year in college, Joe told her that he was unhappy and had been for a while. He asked for a divorce. At first Brandi wouldn’t take it in. She rationalized it as him not knowing how to be without Jay in his face every day. They talked about Joe’s feelings more than a few times, but Brandi was confident she had appeased his mid-life crisis and persuaded him not to give up on what they’d spent their lives building. She was wrong. She came home from work one day and all Joe’s clothes were gone.

After the initial shock of it, she seemed to be handling everything okay. She stuck to familiar routines, told a few friends what happened, and reached out to her parents for solace. All the while, in the back of her mind, she held on to the thought that Joe would be back. Not reacting and not panicking was her way of giving him the space to figure out he had made a terrible mistake. It had been two weeks since he left, and he called but did so reluctantly. His voice was different, and Brandi almost didn’t recognize it. Something had been severed and for the first time, she realized it. Never in her life had she experienced anything like the devastation she felt in that moment. His words were brief, orchestrated, and intended to leave no trace of what they once had. She wanted to beg and plead with him to come home, but he left no space for it. When the call ended, she felt as if everything she had ever known to be true about her life was undone.

As the months went on, Brandi was shocked that Jay chose to spend his vacations from school with his dad. She felt betrayed but kept it to herself. The pain of everything weighed heavy on her mind and she began to drink more than a few glasses of wine to numb it. One day her supervisor at work pulled her to the side and told her that her colleagues were alarmed by her behavior. Brandi reeked of the smell of alcohol, and over time they had grown concerned and tired of covering her mistakes. She was spiraling fast, and it seemed that no one was able to reach her. She didn’t want anyone’s help but wanted to drown herself and her sorrows with alcohol.

Brandi’s issues didn’t begin when Joe left. The emotions of pain and hurt didn’t suddenly come on the scene when he decided to leave their marriage or when her son chose to be with his dad. These emotions had been inside the internal working of Brandi’s heart a very long time. For most of her childhood, she had been labeled the ‘wild one’ by her siblings and others in the family. They saw her as the child that was always vying for attention, always wanting her own way and ignoring attempts to get her to slow down or rein herself in. She felt overlooked and misunderstood, and those feelings were not resolved; they were buried.

She brought this same kind of stubbornness into her marriage and for years, Joe had yielded to it because he knew how much she loved him, but Brandi would never own her inflexibility. She pushed Joe, and had done the same thing with Jay, until they both rebelled against it. Pushing had been her way of holding on to the people she treasured, and she had been desperate to do this.

Traumatic events in life will trigger feelings and emotions deep within to come to the surface. When they do, they are often so powerful that they make us feel powerless. Because we are without the knowledge and spiritual tools to deal with them, we allow them to become master, and we make ourselves slaves. Unconsciously, a shift occurs. We begin to view everything and everyone in life through the lens of our pain, and victimhood becomes a shell around our hearts. We wear it because we have been blinded by satan and taught by the world that emotions deserve a place of rulership in our lives. This is not the truth. It is a lie that will reap havoc on our existences.

Jesus Christ is Lord! Philippians 2:10-11(NKJV) declares “10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Our precious and powerful Savior deserves our absolute humility and devotion, and we must be totally submitted to him in every way. This includes our emotions. He is the Healer of broken hearts, and on this we must depend. Psalm 147:3(NLT) tells us, “He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.” But some of us will bow to such depths of submission to our pain that we refuse to seek Him in the way He requires. In this state, the devil will trick us into thinking that there is more power in a bottle or substance than there is in God’s love. This could never be true, but many have bought into it.

1John 3:20(NLT) declares, “God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.” This is a truth that we must keep in the forefront our hearts and minds continually. We must surrender all that we are to Him. He lovingly begs us to do this in Romans 12:1, to give our whole selves to Him, because we desperately need Him to transform us. He’ll give us a new heart and put a right spirit within us IF we will allow Him.

When our Lord and Savior died on the cross, he took every infirmity, every sickness, every disease, every emotional and mental issue and every sin with him. Every single element of darkness was nailed to the cross and crucified. 1Peter 2:24(NLT) tells us, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.” He is our perfect and powerful Lord and Savior, and he perfectly finished the mission God sent him to complete. He left no ‘i’ undotted or ‘t’ uncrossed. He paid the ultimate price for us to walk in God’s power, love, healing and deliverance, and because of what God accomplished in Christ, we don’t have to live a life of suffering. We must surrender to God with all that we are and be willing to yield our minds and hearts to Him as He reveals the path to healing and lovingly guides us through it. ■

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

“Surrender Your Mind and Heart to God”, written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.