I’ve been talking for a while about how there’s a difference between yielding and surrender.

When you yield in traffic, your foot controls the brake and the gas; you seek to become part of the stream of traffic until you, as an individual, get where you’re going – then you leave the stream of traffic. You are in control. When you surrender, you relinquish control and you become one with the stream – Holy Spirit is fully in control of the surrendered heart.

I was reading Proverbs this morning, as is my habit (one chapter a day, corresponding to the day of the month) and came across this:

“With her enticing speech she caused him to YIELD…immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter” (7:21-22)

Just like you might be enticed by an ad on the radio while you’re driving, or by seeing an ice cream shop on a hot day, if you are yielded, you could turn off and come back if and when you choose to. But if you are surrendered, that won’t happen, ever. You might not get “what you want when you want it” but if you’ve given your heart to Holy Spirit or, in Him, to another person, you’ll get things that are far better than ice cream.

It sounds counter-logical to our independent and wounded culture, but surrender is the safest place one can be. Surrendering means that you’ve decided upon Him at a level that leaves you immune to enticing speech.

It’s interesting that earlier in the chapter, we are advised to “say to wisdom, “you are my sister” and call understanding your nearest kin.” Why? Because surrender is only possible when our identity is established and known. If wisdom is your sister and understanding is your nearest kin, who are you? 

Surrender. Now, fully, completely, forever, to Him and to those He directs you to.