An Attitude of Complete Humility and Complete Surrender to the Father’s Will

The Lord wants to instill in us that attitude of complete humility, complete submission, total surrender to the Lordship and Will of God. In that attitude of total surrender to the Lord lies our possibility of being truly useful servants, of being promoted and advanced in the Kingdom of God, and of attaining all the greatness God wants us to attain.

So, paradoxically, when we learn to regard ourselves as servants—that is, slaves of God—that is when God exalts us and can lift us to a very high level. And that fundamental truth, which I will later qualify with another idea that is, interestingly, almost the opposite of what I have just set out here, but complementary to it—that truth of total surrender, total submission, recognition of our own smallness and insignificance before the lordship and sovereignty of God—is set forth throughout Scripture. We must try to enter into it and cultivate it, and make it a central part of our minds and of how we see ourselves in our relationship with God, because God sees the heart.

And when He sees that attitude of total surrender and submission to Him, and acknowledgment of His greatness and His absolute Lordship, God is then moved and prompted to bless us, to use us, and to place us in positions of great influence in the Kingdom of God. But that attitude must be there in all sincerity and quite naturally.

And I see that truth elaborated throughout Scripture. For example, it occurred to me just a moment ago, before beginning this study, that if you look at chapter 131 of Psalms, Psalm 131, David says: “Jehovah, my heart has not grown proud, nor have my eyes been raised in pride; I have not occupied myself with great things, or with things too lofty for me. Truly I have composed and quieted my soul”—and here is the key—he says: “like a child weaned from its mother; like a weaned child is my soul.”

Do you not see here that attitude of total humility and total surrender to the Will of the Father? Do we not see it in the posture the psalmist describes, having conducted himself before Jehovah like a child weaned from its mother? That is, what David is saying is: Father, recognize my total surrender to You, my full acknowledgment that I am like a weaned child: I am fragile, I am defenseless, utterly dependent on You. Just as a child has no right to govern himself, just as he depends on his mother for everything he can do and on his mother’s protection, and has no will of his own, so I have conducted myself before You, Lord.

And the reason David describes that attitude is that he knows it pleases God when a man or a woman assumes that attitude of total dependence before the Lord. It is that quality of acknowledging God’s lordship and greatness that moves the Father’s heart, and that we must cultivate every day. That attitude of fragility, of utter need for God, of total surrender to the greatness and lordship of the Father, of awe before the greatness, holiness, and Power of God, and of recognizing every possible right of the Father.

Because the opposite attitude is one of rebellion, of self-sufficiency, of governing ourselves, of deciding for ourselves. Even when we do not express it verbally, God discerns it in our hearts, and His Spirit is grieved; it moves Him to distance Himself from us and not to bless us as He wishes.

When God discerns in us that attitude of David’s—like a child weaned from its mother, fragile, defenseless, and totally dependent on her—His Father’s heart is moved, and then God is willing to bless us in every possible way. That is why it is so important for us to cultivate that attitude.

Another passage that comes to mind in this connection, concerning utter awe and always thinking of God before ourselves, I find in the Psalm—I think it is Psalm 139; I am not completely sure, so do not criticize me if it is not, but I know it by heart—and there the psalmist says: “Where shall I go from Your Spirit, and where shall I flee from Your Presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; and if I make my resting place in Sheol, behold, You are there.”

Throughout that Psalm, the psalmist speaks of being formed in his mother’s womb, of God having written every episode, every design in his body and in his life, and of the Lord being everything, isn’t that so?—and having his entire life under His control. Again and again in the Bible we see this portrayal of the Lordship of God and the smallness of man.

And we must cultivate that twofold attitude. On the one hand, God’s greatness and His total control over our lives; on the other, our smallness, our fragility, our simplicity before the might of God. Man is like the flower of the field, it says: the wind passed over it and it perished, and its place will know it no more.

So there is that idea that the Power of God is far greater than our fragility, and that there is great power in that attitude. And that truth, as we see, runs from the Old Testament to the very end of the New Testament. We must cultivate it, and that is why the Lord uses that parable that was our starting point: when we have done everything God has commanded us, even then we must regard ourselves as unprofitable servants.

God bless you, and we will continue working through this, because it is such an essential and important truth in the life of every believer. Until our next meditation.