We all come to periodic crossroads in our Christian walk.

The Prayer of Relinquishment

By Dionne Carpenter “Abba, Father,” He said, “everything is possible for You. Take this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.” ~ Mark 14:36
READING: Genesis 22:1-14
I had the timing all figured out when we transitioned from our second church plant to the third. We prayed like crazy to sell our house by June 30, calculating the sale would be completed in time for us to move by the start of our sons’ schools in September.
But no buyer came. I fumed all through July. God, how could You fail us like this? By late July, I surrendered the timing of our move to God – dejected but yielded.
We all come to periodic crossroads in our Christian walk. Something suddenly takes center stage: something we dearly love, something we’ve assumed, or maybe something we’ve been praying for with all our might. God gives us an unmistakable choice: Will you lay this down? Will you trust even this to Me, to do with as I will? This crossroad moment always addresses an issue that, left unchecked, could poison, divert or dilute our single-hearted devotion to Christ. Whatever the details, praying the prayer of relinquishment leaves the taste of death on our tongue because, of course, it always is a kind of death.
Sometimes God removes what we surrender, and because He has kindly allowed us the dignity to choose, we find peace. But often He returns to us, in purified form, the thing we gave to Him. Our buyer showed up two weeks after my surrender.
I thought the deadline was June 30. I was wrong. God used that painful delay to teach me to trust His perfect timing, then sent us buyers whose terms gave us plenty of time to move into our new house just in time for the first day of school.
Dear Father, Help me to walk at Your pace. Amen.
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