Faith, Surrender, and Trees — An Autumn Reflection

Following Jesus is really hard. I really don’t think we understand what we’re signing up for when we say yes to following Him.

I’ve been saying that a lot this year, and honestly, it feels like a truer statement every day. When I first “signed up” to be a Christian, I expected to receive a lot of things like joy, love, and satisfaction from God. I also expected that I’d have to submit to certain rules, like not stealing, not killing people, and being a nice person. And as I looked at this as a business transaction, it seemed like a solid deal! I could totally not kill people and not steal in order to receive joy, love, and satisfaction.

While I’ve definitely received joy, love, and satisfaction from God, what ended up being asked of me was a lot different than I expected. I very quickly realized that following Jesus was not necessarily about submitting to rules, but about whole-life surrender. And I find that this starts off with a small portion of your life, and that portion gets bigger over time. We see this in scripture, especially through the life of Peter and the disciples. In Matthew 4 and Luke 5, we see Jesus invite Peter to follow Him while he’s fishing. In Luke 5 specifically, this comes after Jesus helped Him bring in a huge catch of fish, and when given this invitation, Peter leaves the catch to follow Jesus. It seems like in this passage Jesus is inviting Peter to follow Him with his career. It’s not explicitly written in scripture, but it almost sounds like Jesus is saying, “Leave behind the way you have been providing for your family, come follow me and have faith that I’ll provide for you.” As we continue reading through the gospels, Jesus’ invitations continue, and they culminate in the days after Jesus raises from the dead. In Acts 1, we see Jesus inviting Peter, along with the rest of the disciples, to go and be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Essentially Jesus is inviting the disciples to be His witnesses to the very people who killed Jesus and probably want them killed too. Jesus invites the disciples to give up their lives with the faith that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.

I’ve seen a similar trajectory take place in my own life. When I first began to follow Jesus, He asked me to surrender my education and my friendships, trusting that He would care and provide for me, and in hindsight, this was pretty simple. It started getting a bit more complicated when Jesus asked me to surrender my career and my vocation, trusting that He would care for me and provide for me. And then even more difficult as He asked me to surrender all of my relationships, my ethnic identity, my sexuality, my longing for justice, my shame, my pain, my pride, the list goes on and on. All with the faith that He’s going to care and provide for me, and ultimately, that Jesus is the Son of God and He is going to make all things new.

As I reflect on my life following Jesus, I quickly realize that what makes following Jesus difficult is the faith part. Having complete trust that Jesus is going to care and provide for me, and ultimately, that Jesus is the Son of God and that He is going to make all things new. In the beginning, the things I surrendered to God seemed simple because it didn’t really require complete trust. It wasn’t hard trusting God with my education because I was a good student, and I believed that if God failed, I could use my abilities to do well. Surrendering my career to Jesus wasn’t too bad because I believed that if God failed and full-time ministry didn’t work out, I could find a new job (THIS IS PRIDE!). It’s the moments when I had little-to-no control and felt powerless that were difficult because I had to put my full trust in God and actually believe that He’s all-powerful. It’s hard to follow Jesus in moments when I’m watching a presidential debate and being confronted with the deep brokenness of the world because it feels like there is so little I can do to fix it. It’s hard to follow Jesus in moments when I see another black woman or man shot and killed, and despite all of the protests, education, and praying, it feels like nothing has changed. It’s hard to follow Jesus in moments when He makes a promise to me about my future that I can’t control, and almost nothing around me seems to suggest that this promise is going to come true. It’s hard to have complete trust and faith in Jesus making all things new and being trustworthy when I feel like I’m doing everything I can and nothing is changing around me. I’m finding that it’s difficult for me to have faith in God while I’m holding onto the belief that I or the world around me has more power than He does. I feel like the Israelites in Exodus 6:9; even though God told them He would set them free, they were discouraged because they believed Pharaoh was more powerful than God.

What’s beautiful about God, however, is that He delights in teaching us who He is. And just as the Exodus narrative details how God taught the Israelites that He is more powerful than Pharaoh, God is teaching us who He is through prayer, scripture, worship, revelation, and community. God revealed Himself to me powerfully during one of my daily walks last week. Last week was incredibly difficult for me because of the updates on the Breonna Taylor case and a few other things. It was incredibly difficult for me to surrender to Jesus and have faith in His promises because I was struggling to believe that He is all-powerful and in control. It was as I was walking with that difficulty that Jesus invited me to sit down at a park near my house. I sat there with Him for about 30-minutes watching the first batch of leaves fall in the autumn. It was then when I asked the question “I wonder if trees are ever scared of letting go of their leaves in the Fall because they’re not sure they’ll grow them back in the Spring.” I was reminded of all of my biology lessons, and how leaves are necessary for plants to undergo photosynthesis so that they could produce the food they need to live. So in a way, trees are taking a risk when they let go of their leaves to prepare for the Winter. And in the months after they let go of their leaves, nothing around them seems to suggest that they’ll grow them back; snow and intense cold are not helpful conditions for growing leaves. Yet every year, as a community, trees let go of their leaves trusting that they’ll grow them back in the Spring. And every year, for millions of years, trees haven’t been let down. And I don’t know exactly what trees put their trust in. Maybe it’s in nature, maybe it’s in biology, or maybe it’s in God, but regardless of what trees put their trust in, how much more could I put my trust and faith in God and the promises He’s made (Matthew 6:26)? And it was on that bench, in that park, on that cool autumn morning that I said to God “I want to have faith like a tree.” And I can honestly say that my faith has grown considerably since that moment.

Following Jesus is really hard. Honestly I don’t think we actually know what we’re signing up for when we first say yes to following Him. I think what makes it so hard is that it’s difficult for us to put our faith in God when we feel like we don’t need Him or when the world around us feels more powerful than Him. But God wants to teach us about who He is so that our faith in Him might grow. Despite meeting God powerfully in that park, will I doubt that Jesus is going to care and provide for me, and ultimately, that He is the Son of God and He is going to make all things new? Probably. But I think this encounter has helped me see that even if I do, He’ll give me what I need to grow my faith.

Lord would you bless us with faith like a tree. Help us surrender the things you are inviting us to surrender trusting that you are going to care for us, provide for us, and that ultimately, you are God and you are making all things new. That despite our pride, the circumstances around us, and that we might feel helpless and powerless, would you help us see that you are in control and all-powerful. Lord would you bless us with faith like a tree. Amen.