A couple of Sundays back, I had the wonderful opportunity to preach the message at the church I attend. If you would like to watch, click here. We are doing a six week series about joy, and I shared about how I find joy in my identity as Christ’s child and how we all should. I’m going to be my own worst critic about this, so I thought I could’ve done a lot better. But, it is over now, and I can’t do anything about it. Through all of that though, I am so proud of myself for getting up there and being so vulnerable. I want to continue talking about joy, because it has been so apparent in my life recently.

This week we’re going to talk about being JOYFULLY SURRENDERED.

That morning as I was waiting before service, I was nervous. I leaned over to my friend, Lindsey, and showed her my heart rate on my watch – it was a steady 140 beats per minute. Just a little nervous, right? I sat there in the front row with my leg shaking up and down and a prayer on repeat in my head.

May the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, Lord. And, please don’t let me puke in front of all of these people. Calm me down. Please! I need you. 

I couldn’t do it by myself. I had to give it to God. I had to let what God want for that service be more important that what I wanted. I surrendered.

There has been some other stuff going on in my life, which I don’t want to get into too much detail with on here. But, it’s been hard to deal with it all and still be me. I felt invalidated and pushed back to square one. I hope you’ve noticed how much I grown over the last few months while at college (you being the reader). I feel way more confident in myself and my faith. I feel like I can share here and not be ran out of town. That day, after all that I read on the Facebook post, I felt like nothing, worthless, scum, anything undeserving of life. It hurt a lot. There was nothing I could do though in that situation to change the minds and hearts of the aggressors. It was out of my hands. I had tried to get them to educate themselves about LGBT persons and the Church, but they simply refused and stood strong. I prayed, and I cried. I cried some more and then I prayed. I needed God to take this situation from me and work. I gave it to God.

Let go and let God.

There’s only so much we can do to change other people. Ultimately, people will only change when they want to. We cannot go around forcing our beliefs upon others and expecting them to get it 100% right away. It’s going to take time and a lot of help from God. Surrender yourself and your troubles to God and be joyful knowing that God has got it. God will take care of it and work their magic. You just have to let go and let God.

xo closeted michael