Brokeness and surrender is what I learned from all my experiences. Total emptiness from self is needed in order to live the abundant life God has for us.

It is basically giving up everything. As for surrender, I have to brutally ask myself the following hard questions in order to fully understand what surrendering to God really is. Am I willing to be emptied? Am I willing to give up the right to be respected?

Am I willing to be weak? Am I willing to lose everything? Am I willing to be seen as a failure? Am I willing to be misunderstood, abandoned or stripped naked? Am I willing not to be rescued? Am I willing to be embarrassed? Am I willing to experience pain?

I guess if "yes" is the answer to all these brutal questions, its like saying "yes God, go ahead, do whatever you want, whatever it takes". That is true surrender and leaving all the results to Him.

My willingness to take all the hardships and giving up your rights for the Lord and in order to see Him clearly is what God wants from us and what keeps us in His presence more.

In surrender there is peace.

Verses

God honors a contrite heart
God honors a broken spirit
Psalm 51

7
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
New International Version (NIV)

Psalm 51

17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
New International Version (NIV)

New International Version (NIV)

Psalm 145

18
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
New International Version (NIV)

New International Version (NIV)

Isaiah 16

1
Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of the Daughter of Zion.
2
Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.
3
"Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night-- at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees.
New International Version (NIV)

Isaiah 57

15
For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
New International Version (NIV)

Isaiah 66

2
Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.
New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 5

3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
New International Version (NIV)

Luke 18

13
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14
"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
New International Version (NIV)

Joel 2

12
`Even now,` declares the LORD, `return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.`
13
Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
14
Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing-- grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.
New International Version (NIV)

2 Samuel 14

14
Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.
New International Version (NIV) Bible

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