07/20/2026
When the Lens Changes
For years, I thought surrender meant laying my dreams, desires, and plans on the altar, hoping God would give back the ones He approved of.
I loved Jesus. I wanted to follow Him. But if I’m honest, I often lived more like an employee trying to please a boss than a daughter resting in the love of her Father.
Every decision became another opportunity to wonder if I had missed Him.
Did I hear Him correctly?
Is this His will or mine?
What if I make the wrong choice?
Without realizing it, I wasn’t seeing God through the finished work of Jesus. I was seeing Him through the lens of my own story.
My childhood had taught me that love could disappear. Acceptance could be earned or lost. Relationships weren’t always safe. So when I came to God, I assumed He must work the same way. I read Scripture through an old covenant lens because it matched what I already believed about relationships.
Then God led me into what I now call my Patmos season.
Like John, it was a season of being set apart—not as punishment, but for revelation. Much of what had once defined me was stripped away. In the quiet, the Father wasn’t teaching me how to perform better. He was teaching me to see Him differently.
As that old lens began to fall away, something remarkable happened.
Healing finally reached the roots.
I discovered that my relationship with God wasn’t sustained by my ability to surrender enough, strive enough, or obey perfectly. It rested completely on the finished work of Jesus.
I wasn’t trying to become someone God could love.
I already was His beloved.
I wasn’t striving to become fruitful.
I had already been grafted into the True Vine.
Branches don’t struggle to become branches.
They abide.
The healthier the roots became, the more naturally the fruit appeared.
Verses I had read for years suddenly came alive.
“For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)
I used to hear that verse as though God were standing outside of me, deciding whether my plans measured up.
Now I hear something entirely different.
He is already at work within me.
He is shaping my desires.
Renewing my mind.
Healing my heart.
Teaching me to recognize His voice because I belong to Him.
Today, I still make plans.
I still dream.
I still ask for wisdom.
But I no longer live with the fear that one wrong decision will somehow derail God’s purpose for my life.
Why?
Because my confidence is no longer in my ability to find Him.
It is in His faithfulness to finish what He began.
After all…
He is not only my Creator.
He is my Abba Father.
And why would I expect anything less than growth from the One who planted me, grafted me into Christ, and faithfully tends the garden of my heart?
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Reflection
What if surrender isn’t about convincing God to accept your plans…
What if surrender is allowing Him to heal the lens through which you see Him?
As your vision changes, your desires begin to change—not through striving, but through abiding.
You stop trying to become.
You simply grow into who you have always been in Christ.
A safe place to discover the Father’s heart of love, renew your mind, heal hidden roots, live loved, and begin making disciples through healthy fruit.
