As I pulled the weeds away from the beautiful rose bush’s base, I noticed the root ball had four sections. I wondered if I should leave them together or divide and place each section at different posts across the fence…
Just like the uprooting of my rose bush, some of my life’s leaves wilted, petals fell to the ground and a few of my branches produced more thorns than blossoms – at least for a while. God was pruning my ministry and my life, teaching me how to surrender my plans for His.
It was hard. But God was doing a new thing and allowing me to perceive it. (Is.43:19) That was five years ago and I can say without a doubt that I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if He had not uprooted me and planted me in a new place, with new dreams.
It’s easy to doubt God, ourselves and our futures when our lives feel uprooted and our dreams fall apart. For years, I had allowed pain in my past to hinder me from trusting God with my future. I allowed insecurities and fears to keep me from living in the assurance of His promises and the confidence of His love.
The only way I could surrender my former soil was to get rooted in God’s love. So I spent time with Jesus. He was all I had. Each time I wanted to cry or run, I took the broken pieces of my heart and my will and gave them to Him. I was honest with Him about how I felt. How disappointed I was. How mad I was. How hurt I was. How scared I was.
Each day I would ask Him to show me how to process my pain or my questions through His truth. How to rely on Him. How to embrace what He was doing so that I would become more like Him. I remember reading, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. “(Philippians 2:5-7)
As I asked Him to help me understand, I began to see How God could reveal more of Himself through me as I depended more on Him. Eventually those around me would enjoy the new blossoms that were produced through my surrender..
I read through the book of John, journaling each time I noticed Jesus laying down His comforts, His familiar places and people, His rights, His life – to bring glory to His Father. And each time I would let go a little more.
It taught me absolute dependence on God like I had never known and changed me from the inside out. I came to new place of trusting Him and experiencing His glory in my life and in my family. Even now we are living out the lesson of the rose bush as we make room for a new “planting of the Lord” in our lives. I invite you to read through my posts last week and see our little crown of beauty: a display of His glory revealed through a little girl who’s becoming part of our story!
What is God asking you to surrender? I’d love to know so I can pray for you! And if you’d like a chance to win a copy of my “Beyond the Shadow of Doubt” message on DVD, be sure to click on the word “comments” just below my name, then type in the white box. If you don’t have a blog, just click anonymous. It’d be fun to know your first name, age and city (& email address so I can let you know if you win)!
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Hi Renee! What wonderful news about your new baby girl! God is SOOOOOOOO good, isn't He?
Right now, I am busily working on the ministry God gave me: God's Perfect Image Ministries (www.godsperfectimageministries.blogspot.com), but I am also still working full-time as a paralegal in a very toxic work environment. Please pray that I would surrender my frustrations to Him – He ultimately knows what is best for me.
God Bless you, Renee!!
Blessings,
Lara O'Brien (Age 41, Atlanta, GA)
please pray for my family situation. My husband left March '08. We married in '75 and I was not even aware we were in trouble. I have grown so much closer to the Lord and ask for guidance. You used 2 of my favorite scriptures today!
Cindy
[email protected]
Thanks so much Renee,
I am going through a time of struggling to surrender to the father, his pruning, his discipling me has left me alone physically. I also had a mentor, they were like family, actually they were the only family I ever knew…now the Lord has removed me from them and they are living out their ministry, while I'm waiting for what the Lord will do with me…there are good days and there those days that I disobey and I just feel like I'm slipping and I can't see or hear what he's doing or even saying….please pray for me.
My name is Sage, 29, from Brooklyn, New York at [email protected]
Thank you so much Renee!
And Stay Bless!
Hello Renee,
I am Carolyn Cummins, Myrtle Beach,SC…I am now 66 and in a new phase of life. I don't want to quit, stop, or become sour in my older years. I don't want to die on the vine! I have been a Christian since age six…God has brought me through much and I can honestly say, "He has never let me down in any way."
I recently was challenged to do a week missions trip to Ecuador…which has ignited me to "BE ALL I CAN BE FOR HIM". My heart seeks an even deeper, newer, knowledge of Him….Thus I read the devotions I get and have just read your blog for the first time. I will be back. Please pray for my daughter, Carla, who will be leaving to go back to Crete,Greece. She has known God but is floundering in her faith…she is teaching English to Greeks and is soon to marry a Greek boy…..I have found her very fragile on different days…many challlenges ahead of her….please pray for God to become more real to her……and that she will fall back in love with Him…….she is talented and gifted…..thanks for your prayers. She has a blog called "Living Happiness"…she doesn't know that I know that but it has given me insight to her struggles…..in Christian love, Carolyn Cummins
Hey Renee,
I think God is asking me to surrender my time and the priorities I have within the minutes and hours I have each day.
This was a great post/devotional–great illustration to go along with it, too! 🙂
Rebecca
Vancleave, MS
34
[email protected]
Thank you …this so ministered to my heart as I am in transition 'again'…His Blessings
Your words have really touched me. I am having a terrible time letting go of a past relationship. I have tried to leave it with God so many times, but my heart is still breaking. Please pray for me to be able to fully give it to him so I can have the peace only God can give me. Thank you so much.
[email protected]
Hello, Renee!
I loved your devotional today, as my mantra as of late has been a saying I heard years ago: "Bloom Where You are Planted". Though I yearn for change in my life, and I feel like I am on the edge of a cliff ready to jump off into God's waiting arms and see where He takes me, I know I must remain rooted where I am, for now, and try to find my way while
I remain here. Though I feel that I have surrendered all I am to Him for His purpose, I sense that there is so much more waiting for me: a deeper relationship with Him, an even greater trust, and a life that I can't even glimpse right now. I loved how you used the retrospective look of five years passing to begin to grasp what God is doing in your life. I pray that the trials I have been facing and the "refining" He is doing in my life will produce the fruit that He is pruning me for.
I am writing from Waukesha, Wisconsin on a gently raining morning. My age? I'm old enough to know better, but young enough to still stumble and fall. I need Jesus so much!
Blessings,
Colleen
[email protected]
Renee, the P31 devo was so fitting for me. I know I am in the middle of something, and although I trust God completely and know He is using this time in my life for refining me, I don't like it, I've told Him and can't wait for it to be over. In your blog you wrote some words that are going to be my prayer. Thank you very much.
Hello Renee–I really enjoyed reading your devotional this morning because it really brought things into prospective for me.
I will be graduating next weekend from college and I just don't know where my next move is. I currently work full-time for a great company that has its issues at times, but I am not sure if I am meant to stay here or explore other options. I don't want to feel as though my degree is being wasted and I am so used to planning out every aspect of my life (so I thought).
Plus my daughter is going to middle school next week and will be riding the bus for the first time. That is freaking me out because I am a very protective mother with many fears. Please pray for us.
Even though this may seem small to some, it is a journey for us and we need prayers.
Latoya, 28 years, Winterville
[email protected]
First I must tell you that your example of the rose bush is a God sent message to me at this time in my life. After eleven years of work,recent raise,service award I was asked to resign over a conflict of interest issue that I had approval for from 3 supervisors. As you can imagine I am feeling angry, hurt and scared. God has taken me out of my comfort zone big time. But at the same time He has sent me messages EVERY DAY since this happened like your's through my daily devotionals and my study of Joseph. My support circle of friends and family is unbelievable. After many years of being a single parent (now of a troubled teenager…another heartache) I have tried to be in control of my life. As my walk with the Lord has progressed in the past five years I am being tested and pruned. I have screamed at Satan to let him know that I will not falter. I will trust my heavenly Father even when my nature is fighting to figure out solutions to my situation and do it on my own. I just wanted you to say a prayer for me and my family. I am so thankful for devotionals which to me seem like manna from Jesus saying, I am here, lean on me and trust me. God bless you and keep you and your ministry successful. Teresa [email protected]
Hi Renee! I am 23 from Stone Mountain, GA, and God is calling me to surrender my career and my relationship to Him. I am currently in graduate school, but I now realize that some of my "career" choice changes have been driven by fear…and I am wondering exactly what God wants me to do. Also, I am engaged…throughout our relationship I have seen God work and move, but now I am doubting us. I don't know if this relationship should have been just for a season or whether this is the right timing. i appreciate your prayers, and thank you so much for your devotion and blog!
[email protected]
I forget, my e-mail is carmen_0_glez@hotmail,com I am the one who lives in Wa state and have a 7 years old husband"nephew.
Hi Renee!
Thanks a lot for your devotional it was like hear my Heavenly Father telling me what is my problem right now with my anger.
My husband and I moved to live in the same property where his family live, is a big struggle to me, they are not believers and that costs me a lot of headaches. Yesterday was a heavy day, his nephew is a little 7 years old boy who have been very attached with me, we pray for him, The Lord show me that his soul is in ruins, we live in Wa. state in a farm and around here we have old barns and that is how his soul and spirit is. My heart is broken for that child but his mother and grandmother are so aggressive to me that some times I just can't stand firm and persevere showing God"s mercy, Please include me in you prayers.
Have a good day!
Love.
Carmen.
Denise thank you for planting of the lord .please pray for me for strenth to keep God way frist me and my boyfriend are trying to live holy for the lord but we fall back into our old sin way try to sustain from have sex.and we want to wait till we are marry please pray for us keep God frist.
Thank you for sharing your story. I have just recently been called into ministry and my pastor is preparing me, "pruning" me, and stretching me. My pastor asked me to do the message last night to the youth and I was all for it. Then when I told him what I was talking about, he asked me to do an alter call as well. That freaked me out at first, but I learned more about how to do it and it was such a wonderful night! Just under a dozen youth kids (jr and sr high) accepted Christ for the first time! There is nothing better in life than to have helped with that! Our God is so good.
[email protected]
Thank you Renee for your wonderful devotion. I needed it more now that ever. A good friend of mine just moved and also I have been diagnosed with a rare disease that can cripple me if now treated agressively. I've always been a control freak but this has definitely been my season of surrender. I do surrender all to the Lord because I know that He knows what is best for me.
Renee,
Thank you for sharing this story. It really helped me to continue to see that letting God lead my life is the best way. It is hard sometimes, especially when we see our "dreams" not turn out as we planned. But God has a greater plan, and I need to be reminded of that everyday.
Wow! Thanks so much for sharing. The timing is perfect! God is calling my 14-year old daughter and I to El Salvador! We are leaving behind everything – every part of "life" as we know it here in North Carolina. But even as I write this, I realize that we are taking with us the most precious part of our "life"; our experiences, our growth, our witness of Him in our every circumstance. Thank you!
I love the rose bush analogy. I would like to participate in the drawing. My name is Rhonda, I am 43 and I live in Apex, NC. My e-mail is [email protected].
Thank you for letting God use you to serve and bless others.