Have you ever held onto something that God wanted you surrender to Him because it seemed like a good thing? Have you ever been so attached to your plan or project that when God asks you for it you didn’t want to let go? When God asks you to give up something good it’s usually because He has something better for you. He knows what’s best for you even when you cannot see or imagine the good thing He has in store for you.
This year was my first time going to the Declare Conference and the theme was #beautifuldeep. For me it was a time of beautiful surrender, more than I expected to get from a conference for bloggers. 
Such a tiny offering, but nevertheless there was something I needed to laid at His feet. I had not expected to get so much in return for so little. But that’s just like our God: lay down what you have and He will give what He’s had in store for you all the time, just waiting for you to trust Him more.
This thing I was holding unto was a good thing and I had worked long and hard at and I wanted it. I could not see the logic in God wanting me to let it go. But sometime God is not logical… Selah.
In my stubbornness and refusal to let go of what I wanted to do I lost intimate fellowship with my Lord. I had lost my ability to hear the Lord’s voice for me personally though I could hear to prophesy, for prophetic intercession to pray for others, for ministry. As a prophetic person His voice is like air to me and our fellowship like water, I need them to survive.
I was tired of not hearing the Lord’s voice intimately, so I asked Him what I had to do hear His voice again. As always, He pointed back to the thing I was holding on to. Though I had been struggling with letting for some time, right before going to the Declare Conference in my desperation to hear His voice I surrendered to the Lord, but not fully. I did not even know I was still holding on until I asked the Lord why He was still silent. He showed me that I was holding in the depths of my heart to the hope that He would somehow give “it” back.
Then that first night at Declare Conference as I listened to the speaker Kris Camealy tell her story about how she lost sight of what she was doing and why, it seemed very similar to what I was going through that I almost fell out my seat. She too had been faced with something good she really wanted to do for God but then her “self” got in the way and before she knew it the focus was no longer about glorifying God, but about building a platform for her to do the thing she was passionate about.
I knew that her story was meant for me to hear. If I got nothing else out of the conference I knew this is why I had come. When she finished I was almost tears. Then the worship came. Amazing. Through tears I built another altar and took the thing I was stilling holding in the depths of my heart and place it there without regret or the desire to have it back. I just wanted Jesus, whatever it took.
As I continued to worship my tears became tears of joy and cleansing and refreshing freedom. Then I heard His voice, again. He showed me what He had for me. It is truly better than I could have asked or thought. The thing that blew my mind was the quickness with which He responded to my tiny offering. Just like when Abraham laid Isaac on the altar, it was right then that the Lord provided the ram. Because I was “willing to hear ‘no’ God could trust me with a ‘yes,’” Jan Greenwood. Not my yes, His yes.
We are His workmanship, created in Christ for good works He preordained for us, which is why it’s so important to be willing to lay down our desires for His. Truly, I could have never imaged what He had in store for me.
Beloved, if there is something you are holding on to, even if it is a good thing, but God has put His finger on it, let it go. Give it to Him and watch Him give you more than you can ever dream of.
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