Surrender It

During this past Body Sculpt Challenge, I conducted a voluntary Diagnostic Challenge for my participants. This 5-day nutritional challenge involved completely giving up, or surrendering, certain foods in hopes that you could experience a significant change in your body. Everybody who participated experienced everything from losing 4 lbs to clearing up Rosacea to losing inches to improving gastrointestinal issues.

The main challenge of the Diagnostic Challenge was the surrendering part. We've all grown to love certain foods that wound up not being good for us. While I'm not against eating ANY kind of foods, I am against eating foods that are physically doing harm to your body. Perhaps dairy is causing inflammation in your body, and if you don't surrender the dairy, then you'll ultimately surrender your life. But ice cream, cheese, and butter taste so good!

Perhaps simple sugar is causing you to have stomach issues. If you don't surrender it, then you'll surrender your gastrointestinal track. It would get so inflamed that you could barely absorb any nutrients and you'll slowly waste away.

You see where I'm going with this? There is something in your life that you thoroughly enjoy, but it's causing you harm and you probably know it. But the comfort of this thing keeps you from surrendering it, and as long as you hold onto it, you'll pay a huge price for it.

I think about a story in the Bible concerning a man named Naaman, who was a Syrian (or Aramean depending on your translation) army commander. He suffered from a disease called leprosy, which was probably not the same kind of leprosy that we know of today. This kind of disease was marked by the whitening of the skin, almost like the disease Vitiligo which is marked by white patches of skin all over your body.

This commander was told that a prophet in Israel named Elisha would be able to heal him from the disease. So, he goes to Elisha, but before the commander could actually meet this prophet, Elisha sent a messenger to Naaman instructing him to dip in the Jordan River seven times if he wanted to be healed. Instead of being excited about this news, Naaman got angry! In his words, he thought that the prophet would come out to meet him, call upon God, wave his hand over him, and POOF! He would be healed. Then Naaman started wondering why he had to dip in the Jordan River of all places, as apparently the Jordan River wasn't all that attractive to him. Maybe it was a dirty river. So, the commander started to walk away from Elisha's house, fuming.

But one of the commander's servants talked some sense into Naaman, saying, "Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn't you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, 'Go and wash and be cured!' " Seeing that Naaman was rather reasonable, he took his servant's advice and washed in the river. He was healed from his disease and couldn't be happier.

Why didn't Naaman want to dip in the river in the first place? Most likely because of his pride. He simply wanted to stand in front of the prophet and do nothing else. He was the commander of the army of a great nation, and it would be humiliating to dip in the nasty Jordan River. But in order for him to move forward and to cure himself, he had to surrender that pride. Once he did that, he was cured. (You could find this story in 2nd Kings chapter 5.)

Literally and figuratively speaking, there are so many things we could cure ourselves from by simply surrendering one thing in our lives. By simply surrendering your love for sugar, you could drop 10 pounds in a week! By simply surrendering your love for entertainment, you could get more important things done. By simply surrendering your pride, you could keep your job. By simply surrendering your urge to lie, you could earn more trust from the people around you.

No matter what you want to accomplish in life, there would always be something holding you back from your goal. And this thing is usually not all that difficult to shake off. The reason you're holding onto it is simply because you don't want to let it go.

Back in the day when I used to watch The Simpsons, there was an episode where Homer tried to grab a soda can from the vending machine by sticking his arm into the machine. He got one arm stuck and then used his other arm to grab something else from another vending machine. So, now this man is stuck and the fire department had to come rescue him. One of the fire fighters told Homer that they would have to saw his arms off! So, while one of the fire fighters was about to cut one of his arms off, someone else stepped in and asked Homer if he was holding onto the items in the vending machines. All Homer had to do was let go of those items if he wanted to be free. He walked away humiliated as everybody was laughing at him.

Just think what Homer could have lost by holding onto the vending machine items. He was stuck because he didn't want to let go. Sounds like you, doesn't it? You're stuck right now because you don't want to let go of something. It's not hard to let it go. Nothing is forcing you to keep it. Just like with Homer, all you need to do is to simply let go of it.

Naaman wasn't told to do something difficult. All he had to do was dip in the river 7 times. It doesn't take much effort to do that. The servant that reasoned with him probably couldn't believe Naaman was about to walk away from the answer to his disease because his pride got in the way. And sometimes, pride is so huge that you wouldn't surrender it even if you knew that life could be made better for you.

There was an episode on T.V. about the repo man who would give people a chance to keep their cars if they could answer some trivial questions. Some people were able to keep their cars while others couldn't. But this repo man went to one woman who was just prideful! She fussed at him the entire time, not giving him a chance to explain to her that she had a chance to keep the car. The repo man tried his best to reason with her, but her pride just got in the way. So, the repo man just took her car.

What is holding you back from success? What great changes could you make in your life if you could just simply surrender something? You know what it is and you know what you need to do, and it's not hard to do it. You just simply need to be willing to surrender it. Give it away, because you don't need it. Give it up, because it's holding you back. Let it go, because you can't be all that you can be as long as this thing is in your life.