There are so many things in your life that demand your surrender to them. Yes, I do mean “demand.” When surrender is called for, it is not a request. The call for surrender is a command.

To surrender is to yield or to give up something that you have to someone else. It means to give a thing to someone because they told you to do so. It means to give up a right or privilege for someone else to control. It means to give up yourself to someone or something else.

Surrender isn’t a word or action that we like most of the time. I am not about to give something that is mine for someone else to have and control. People mess things up! Sometimes they’re downright oppressive! I’m not about to give something that is mine to someone who is not worthy!

But what if someone was worthy? What if someone actually cared about you and your well-being? What if someone could take your surrender without messing anything up? What if someone had the ability and the capacity to take your complete surrender without you being oppressed?

God can do that. God is worthy. God can’t mess up. God will not oppress you.

But what does surrender to God look like?

I saw an adorable partial picture of this in the Toy Story Christmas special this last year, “Toy Story That Time Forgot”.

The setting is right after Christmas. The toys go with their little girl, Bonnie, to another child’s house. There they find toy dinosaurs that don’t know they are toys – they think they are actual dinosaurs meant to do battle. They live to fight. They will never surrender to anyone.

Trixie the triceratops, one of Bonnie’s toys, befriends one of the other dinosaurs called Reptillus Maximus. Trixie tells Reptillus about what it is like to be played with, what it is like to give yourself over to a kid. Reptillus states that giving is surrender, and that he will never surrender.

But he soon finds out what he really is. He is a toy, meant to be played with. Playtime is his purpose. He refuses to believe it, even when the reality of it stares him right in the face. He refuses to surrender to the control of someone else.

Trixie tells Reptillus that he can be so much more than what he is now. He can be anything his boy wants him to be. He can be something he never even thought of. But that can only happen if he surrenders.

So in a moving scene, Reptillus drops his weapon, and lets himself fall into the child’s hand. He quickly finds that being played with is not a bad thing. He finds that playtime is wonderful – or in his words, “Glorious.”

While this depiction is not entirely what it is like to surrender to God, the flavor of it is there. When you surrender to God, He doesn’t just pretend that you are something else. You become something else, you are something else, and it is exactly what you were meant to be.

God knows best what you were meant for because He created you specifically for it. God created you with the talents and abilities to do exactly what He has in mind. But God also lets you decide if you are going to use them for His glory or not. While surrender is a command, it is also a voluntary act.

So who or what has your surrender? Is it complete and unconditional surrender?

Surrendering to anyone or anything less than God will only bring you bondage. But surrender to God is wondrous, and despite having surrendered, you will never be more free! You can be more than what you are. You can be anything that God wants you to be. All you need to do is surrender, fall into His loving hand and let Him hold you.

Surrender is a beautiful thing.