It's at the point of desperation that the soul finds its deepest desire,
and in that desire lies everything of which true life is made.
Perhaps the first and central question concerning surrender
ought not to be, “What am I willing to give to God?”
but “What am I willing to receive from Him?”
For it's only in the realization that I have nothing to give Him and
He has everything to give me that true humility and surrender come.
If I would simply receive all He offers me and let Him fill me up
I would have no room in my hands to hold onto anything else.
But how often it is that we won't receive it until everything else is lost.
It's the secret and inexpressible dreams of the soul
which are the hardest things of all to let go and the last to go.
When they are finally gone we have nothing left to run to but Him,
and when we do we find that He is the beginning,
the end and the center of every secret dream.
Ah, blessed Peniel—that mysterious and holy ground
where heartache collides head-on with romance,
that deep and shadowed land where we struggle
with God and with men and we overcome,
that painful yet glorious place which we may leave limping
with a wrenched hip but we do not care, for we have seen God’s face—
like Jacob, may we not pass you by without being forever changed.
Genesis 32
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