On learning to hold your dreams with open hands before God.
Have you ever wanted something so badly that you couldn’t imagine being happy without it? Maybe it was marriage, financial security, success, healing, a child, recognition, or just a different season of life.
God has given us dreams, hopes, ambitions, and longings. These desires can give us a sense of purpose, motivate us to work hard, and help us look forward to what’s ahead.
But problems arise when we judge God’s goodness by whether He grants us what we want. That’s when our happiness rises and falls with our circumstances, and our prayers turn into demands rather than surrendering to God’s will.
When that happens, our desires stop serving us, they start controlling us.
This is why surrender is so crucial. Surrender doesn’t mean giving up every dream or expecting God to say no to everything we enjoy. Instead, it’s about placing every desire under His authority and trusting Him with both the outcome and the process.
A common tactic of the enemy is offering shortcuts to legitimate desires. We see this pattern all through Scripture; instead of waiting for God’s perfect timing and plan, people often try to grab what they want through compromise, manipulation, or outright rebellion.
I’ve seen this play out in real life. There was someone who deeply longed for a partner after going through a divorce and feeling lonely. Her desires were understandable, they were human. But instead of trusting God, she entered into a relationship with someone who didn’t share her faith just because he offered companionship and affection. What seemed like a solution to her loneliness gradually pulled her away from Christ. The relationship promised happiness but ended up leaving her spiritually and emotionally broken.
I also knew someone who desperately sought financial success. Surrounded by wealthy-looking people, he became fixated on achieving the same lifestyle. Instead of trusting God to provide, he turned to occult practices promising prosperity. Instead of finding riches, he lost everything. Sadly, he never turned back to Christ in repentance, and his life went downhill from there.
These stories remind me that it’s rarely our desires that destroy us, more often, it’s how we chase after them. When our desires aren’t surrendered, we become vulnerable to anything that offers quick satisfaction. We start thinking the ends justify the means.
But God cares about more than just where we’re headed. He cares deeply about how we get there. He will never ask us to compromise our faith to receive His blessings, nor require us to sacrifice our integrity to claim His promises. He will never lead us down a path that pulls us away from Him.
That’s why surrender isn’t a burden, it’s protection. When we surrender our desires, we’re freed from desperation. We don’t have to manipulate circumstances, bend our convictions, or chase after every opportunity that seems to answer our prayers.
Instead, we learn to trust God’s wisdom, His timing, and His ways. Perhaps the safest prayer we can pray is: “Lord, if this desire is from You, preserve it. If it isn’t, remove it. And if You ask me to wait, give me the grace to trust that Your plans for me are better than anything I could arrange myself.”
Surrender doesn’t mean losing control of your life. It means placing your life confidently into the hands of the One who has loved you faithfully from the very beginning. And there’s no safer place for our desires to be.
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