Win. Be the victor. Be successful. Be victorious. Come out on top.

Those are just a few ways to define what it means to win. Does this describe how you feel at the end of the day? Me neither. Typically I feel the opposite.

Lose. Be defeated. Be conquered. Fail to grasp. Be bested.

That sounds more like how I feel at the end of a typical day. But does it have to be this way? Can I just get one small win?

The short answer is yes, and the long answer is yes but not on my own.

What if I told you that winning wasn’t the end goal but the starting point?

In order to win we must understand what winning really is: true winning starts with surrendering. Surrendering isn’t defeat or giving up but rather recognizing that we, in our sinful state, do not possess the ability to accomplish what can only be accomplished through the Spirit.

Surrendering is looking to Christ and saying “my life is yours,” ….and meaning it.

So you need a win? Me too. Then we must start our days surrendered to Him. This doesn’t mean we must always rise early or have our quiet time with Him look an exact way, but it does mean that the moment we rise we give our day and ourselves to Him.

Surrender looks like realizing our children are His first and ours second.

It looks like preparing them for the day ahead, not just by making breakfast and helping them get dressed but by praying over their hearts, filling them with as much Christ-like love as we can before they are greeted by the world.

Surrender looks like when we start to get frustrated, when our day isn’t turning out the way we planned, or we have one too many things squeezed onto our already overflowing plates, we look to God. We can trust that His ways are best and ask Him to show us how to best use these moments to draw closer to Him.

Surrender looks like when we feel like we are about to lose our cool we pause and pray. We pray and thank God for His blessings and ask Him to give us the grace to pour out onto His children.

Surrender from the world’s point of view may look a lot like weakness and being defeated. But it is in our weakness we find the most strength.

It is in the surrender that we are able to have victory.

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

Blessings,

Laura Dedmon