About the Author

If I’m asking each of you to come along on this “journey” with me, I think it’s only fair that before we start, you know just what you might be getting yourself into.

As I wrote in the my first blog post yesterday, one of the words that you have to use when describing me is that I am a “writer”. It’s something that I have done since high school, developed a passion for, and unfortunately for way too long, I have let that passion and talent take a back seat to other things going on in my life. But not any longer!!!

However, even more important than my ability or passion as a writer, it is the next “Get to know the author“ factoid and that is my Faith!!!

I am lots of things in this world. A Son, Father, Friend, Cousin, Nephew, Co-Worker, Alabama fan (Hopefully one day I can add Husband to that list) but the most important title among all of the words that you could use to describe me is a Christian.

Without my Faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ, I would be nothing. It is hands down the most important thing in this world to me. And if I’m being totally honest, I have not truly grasped just how vital and precious it is until the last 3-4 months.

Sure, I have been a Christian for most of my life and I have always said that I loved Jesus more than anything else, but that just isn’t enough. That isn’t what God wants. And when we say that we love Him more than anything, how do we put that into action? And what does that even look like?

God wants total surrender!!!! Total trust!!!! He just doesn’t want us to turn to Him as a last resort or when we feel like our friends can’t help us and we are at our wits end. He wants all of us when things are good, bad and everything in between. He doesn’t want us to treat him like “Siri” and only ask him things we can’t figure out ourselves.

One of my goals in 2021 was to truly figure out who I am. Not just on the surface, but deep down, in my heart!!! That may seem like an easy question to answer, or so I thought, but it has truly been one of the most eye opening experiences of my life to this point.

It wasn’t until I laid down the preconceived notions of who I thought I was, who others thought I should be or who I planned to be and truly asked “Jesus, who do YOU want me to be?” that I started seeing how critical a deep and personal relationship with Jesus is. A relationship that surpasses EVERY other relationship in my life!!!!

And it made me cry and ask forgiveness that I had not done it sooner in my life. God wants the best for each of us and it isn’t until we give up control of our lives, our hopes and goals and lay the “roadmap to our life” at HIS feet that we will truly find the joy and true peace that only HE can provide.

So often we think that we know what is best for our life and let me tell you I was right there. I was busy making plans for my life and felt that since I was a Christian and trying to do the right thing everyday that surely I was doing what God wanted me to do. I’m sure Jesus got a nice laugh out of that!

All the while I was working out the plans for my life, but I was not asking God if this was truly HIS will. I was not surrendering it all to HIM and praying each and everyday and every step of the way for His guidance and His blessing. I was doing it because I wanted to and surely I knew what was best. It is “my” life after all.

That’s where I was missing the point. I felt that I was in control and that I could handle things and God was just there to bail me out if things got tough or if there was a disaster. That is not true surrender and that is not the relationship with Jesus that HE intends for his children to have with HIM.

Every single day when I wake up, I get on my knees and totally surrender to HIM. I ask Jesus to use me that day. I ask HIM to let me be a light for HIM to the people that I might come across that day and allow me show HIS love through me. I don’t know what my day might hold, but I just ask that in whatever I do, whatever I say, that Jesus is glorified.

I also surrender daily all of my friends, my job, my finances, my love life, my children, and all of the things in my life that I had felt like I had been in control of for all of my life up until recently. I give those to HIM and ask to become the person that HE intends me to be and that HIS will be done in my life and not my own.

All of those things mentioned are important in my life and a huge part of my life, but if they are daily given to Jesus and I ask him to handle them, bless them and work through them, how can I ever go wrong? They will all be returned back to me and be better than ever before because Jesus is working through those and through me.

Is that scary? Absolutely!!!! We think we know best and it’s just not easy letting go of everything and surrendering that control to God.

But that’s the only way to live the life that Jesus intends for us to live. And that’s the only way to have the relationship that Jesus desires to have with each and everyone of HIS children.

I have finally done that over the course of the last 3-4 months and let me just tell you that it has been the best choice I have ever made!!! It is truly a decision that I would not trade for anything and it has been life changing to say the least!!!

Has it been easy? Absolutely not!!!!

Have I tried to grab back control of my life a time or two or ten along the way? Absolutely!!!

But has it been something that honestly has brought me to a closer relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ then ever before? Absolutely!!!!

I have a long way to go but I feel like that I am starting to become the man that HE wants me to become not the man I thought I needed to become.

But when you truly surrender your life and all of it to God, he gives you true peace and a sense that everything is going to work out exactly how He wants it to. It’s not our job to ask God “when” and “how” things in our life are going to play out, but rather we have to put all of ourselves into our relationship with HIM and likewise all of our trust into HIS plan for our life!!!!

That doesn’t mean that there won’t be tough days, struggles, heartache and hardships, because there will be. When our life is surrendered to Jesus that is when we learn the most and are molded and our faith truly grows. We realize that despite life’s storms, and there will be many, that Christ is always there holding our hand and will never leave us.

That my friends is the greatest promise of all. He died for our sins and for us!!!! And that is a person worth our total surrender don’t you think?