I surrender all

I surrender all

All to Thee

My Blessed Savior

I surrender all

A few years ago, I was in my room trying to put together a set list for a service later that week. If you have done anything musically/vocally before you understand that when arranging keys to sing in, sometimes it is better if no one is around because it is not always the prettiest thing. Well this certain week I was having a mental block, or you could probably say a spiritual block, because I couldn’t seem to put any songs together, and nothing seemed to fit. When this sort of stuff happens to me, I just try to get alone in His presence until I feel like He has guided me in the right direction. I may sound like a hippie, I promise I’m not, but normally when this happens, I will just play and sing. I started playing and singing and the song above came to me and I started singing the words [I surrender all…I surrender all] I heard the Lord speak to me in my spirit and say, “Jonathan you don’t mean what you are singing.” It hit me like a ton of bricks, I didn’t mean it, in fact, I wasn’t even close to meaning it.

Growing up, I had it so easy. A fantastic family, wonderful friends, awesome church, and I really didn’t have to trust God because everything I needed was right in front of me. As I got older, more important decisions came my way, and “trusting God” had a whole new meaning. There were so many things that I wanted to hold on to, and it was tremendously difficult for me just to say, “here you go God, You can have it all,” but I knew the most important thing I could do was to learn to trust Him.

So as time passed, what the Lord spoke to me really stuck with me, and I have really tried to surrender to the Lord. I am here to tell you, it is an extremely uncomfortable process, but when I think about what Jesus did for me – He surrendered ALL of His rights being the Son of God, and dying for my sins… – it puts it all in prospective.

I can’t tell you I have it all figured out, believe me. I still have a very long way to go. However, I am learning to take steps forward in trusting (surrendering) to Him. I believe with all my heart that the more we can surrender to Him, He turns right around and gives more to us. If I ask for a billion dollars, there is no way He would ever give it to me if I wasn’t faithful with what I have now. I don’t want a billion dollars…maybe a million, but what I do want is to tap in to all of the anointing that He has for me. I want to be the best husband I can be, I want to be the best friend, leader, and person I can be. I believe this can only happen, when I am taking strides to surrender everything to God.

It has been close to four years since He spoke to me in my room. I sang the song for the first time two weeks ago in a young adult service and I will continue to sing and take those steps toward surrendering it ALL to Him. I would encourage you to do the same.

Jonathan Guy

Stepping outside of the airport in El Salvador and realizing what it means to feel “different” was the first thing that hit me. I couldn’t just talk to whoever I wanted whenever I wanted. At first I had a hard time dealing with the language barrier but as the days went on, it didn’t matter anymore that I didn’t speak the same language as most of the people, its was like God connected us in a way that we didn’t have to talk to understand.

So many times on the trip, I had to step outside of my comfort zone. I ate food that i had no idea what it really was, I played soccer for about the second time ever, I put my life in the hands of one of the world’s most terrifying drivers, and I spoke in front of a ton people to give my testimony. But God was with me through all of it. And my faith in Him began to grow stronger and stronger.

On Sunday, at the first church service we attended, Pastor Kevin told everyone to get in to groups of 4 or 5 to pray.  As we went around our small circles each of us said one thing we needed God’s help with. I told my group that I needed His wisdom. I had never really prayed out loud for someone before, especially someone I didn’t know, so I asked God to give me wisdom and courage for what to say when I prayed. God really does answer our prayers, because He answered mine and I felt His sprit come over me when Pastor Kevin asked us to line up at the front of the church to pray for people. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it was like all the fear and nerves I had about praying for someone, vanished. And I knew God was right there with me.

Thursday, June 2, 2011, is a day I will never forget. I saw people with little money and poor living conditions worshiping good with a greater passion than I have ever had. And you can tell those people don’t lose hope when they don’t receive exactly what they ask for right when they ask for it like I have so many times. They don’t take for things for granted like I do everyday. I realized how selfish of a person I am as saw girls my age worshiping God with everything they had. And right before, Pastor Kevin told our team that many of those girls go home everyday to be abused or molested by someone. My heart broke for those girls. I don’t know yet if foreign missions is exactly my calling. But some part of me got really excited when I thought about opening a home for girls who live in abusive situations everyday. For now I’ll just listen to what God tells me.

For most of the week it was hot and sweaty, there were bugs crawling all over the place, and I never really got the smell of pupusas out of my clothes. But if i had this trip to do all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I believe the missions trip to El Salvador 2011 affected each team member differently. At the beginning of the week I wasn’t so sure a change was going to happen to me at all, but I prayed that I would grow closer to God. And that’s exactly what happened.

I want to take a second to thank everyone who made this trip possible for me. I want to thank my leaders, Matthew Griffin and Je’anna Smith, for being there and setting an amazing example for the team. Thank you Kevin and Stephanie Stewart, you guys are my heroes. You dedicated your lives to El Salvador and I want to thank you for allowing me to be apart of your mission for a week. I want to thank my family and friends for funding me and supporting me and my trip. Thank you to the people whom I don’t even know that help me get to El Salvador. Thank you for the donation, thank you for buying cups, and candles, and catfish dinner.  And most of all thank you to everyone who prayed for me. Thank you, everyone who sent me their love and blessings, even for just one second. Thank you for the lives you helped change. The ones in El Salvador, and my own. Thank you.

One thing that really touched my life was the tremendous faith in God that I saw in the Salvadorians. Even with the poor living conditions that most had, the still put all of their trust in God. It was really awesome to watch so many people come forward for prayer during our services. They believe in miracles and our amazing God more than anyone I have ever met. They know that He can do all things and that He is greater and bigger than all things. I believe that we, as Americans, have lost some of that faith in God. We take everything for granted. Did you know the people in El Salvador live on $2 a day? Most of the students suffer abuse and molestation every single night when they go home. Even though those terrible things are happening to them, they still believe God can help them through it all.

There was one moment during the trip when God tested MY faith. On our free day, we went to a ropes course that stood 15 ft. in the air. I am terrified of heights. Terrified. We were harnessed to some ropes attached to a thick wire so that we couldn’t fall to our deaths. But it wasn’t very tight so we really couldn’t even tell it was there. We just had to know that it was going to hold us up.

I really had to put my trust in that harness. That was a huge step for me. I cried at times and there were moments when I thought I couldn’t do it, but by my faith in that harness and the guidance of others I was able to make it through.

Pastor Kevin, the missionary we worked with during the week, made a comparison of the harness to God and the ropes course to our walk with Him. We may be faced with challenges in our lives, but we can’t give up. We may think that we can’t go any farther, but we must keep going. We may cry a few tears now and then, but that can’t stop us. We have to put all of our trust in God and he will protect us. We must have faith in good times and bad. God is always there no matter what. He sends us people in our lives to help us along in our walk with Him.

Trust in God and all things will work out for the best because His plan is bigger than any of us could ever even imagine.

Being at camp and seeing kids learn and grow reminded me of my time when I was young and how thankful I was for those who took me to camp.  Jennifer and I were greatly impacted by our children’s leaders and pastors. I can name five men right now who gave up their free time to be an example to me when I was a young boy. I would love for people to say we made a difference in their life in fifteen to twenty years.

While praying for the children of Moffett Road, Jennifer and I felt drawn to this verse in Ephesians chapter 3.

¹² In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Our desire is that your kids would come to know Jesus and through faith in Him know that they can come to God for anything and everything, and that He wants them to!

In the several months of planning this trip, trying fundraiser after fundraiser, and searching for answers to questions that I wasn’t sure the answers to made my flesh desire that this trip come and go. Yeah I prayed and fasted f0r this trip, but deep down I felt that the sooner this trip came the faster the burden would be lifted off me. I was dead wrong. I was wrong to harbor such thoughts and emotions. I was wrong to think that the burden would be erased. Despite the joy of returning home to my beautiful wife and son, I left El Salvador knowing I must do more…that my family must do more. No, I’m not packing the bags and leaving for San Salvador, but seeing such great needs and great results of ministry, left me with such a good burden to carry.

I’m happy to say it. I enjoy this burden. Burdens seem to carry such a negative connotation, but even Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30 ²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

I strongly encourage every believer to take at least one foreign missions trip sometime in their life. It will completely humble and bless those who are willing to sacrifice the time and money to do such great things.

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- Dylan Renfro

Video Slideshow…

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Like I mentioned earlier, I help lead worship here at MRAG, so I try to keep up to date on all of the new songs and bands coming out, but the other day I overheard the song that Matt Redman wrote, “Heart of Worship,” and the words tell a powerful story. The first verse says, “When the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come,” it really got me thinking about my personal worship and getting back to the basics with just me and my Father. We have an awesome worship team here at MRAG, and it is so much fun to be able to play and sing with so many talented people who love to worship; but what happens when the service is over, and what does that whole time of celebration have to do with my personal worship? As the song says, when it all fades away (Monday morning), what am I bringing him? The Lord started growing me/grooming me to lead worship in a room all by myself with just Him. I believe all of the stuff I get to do on Sundays is great, but I am realizing that the place where He started me is the most important. I am learning that to grow in my gifts, I do not have to make things more complex, elaborate, or complicated. I believe He is just calling me back to my room, where it is just the two of us. In that experience, and out of that room, is birthed the new ideas that are complex, elaborate, and creative.

I want to do awesome things for the kingdom of God, but I have to remember (I am stubborn as all get out) that He is the source of everything great and wonderful. I must come back to the “Heart of Worship.” I must come back to the personal worship, and the intimate relationship to be able to come into the gifts and the plans that He has for my life and ministry. The story of Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5 is a great example, he thought that to be healed he needed to do something complex, something elaborate, but God wanted to see if he would jump in a normal pond a few times.

God is calling me back to my room, what is He calling YOU back to?