Surrendering Deeper, Not Trying Harder | Mornings with Mico

Good people, what's going on? Name is Meeko, and it's my one-on-one time with God. This week, I'm using letters that people have written in to me, and I'm using all of these letters as like a source of inspiration for our devotionals this week. And today, I wanna speak from this thought of, transformation isn't trying harder, it's surrendering deeper. I got a letter from a young guy out of Florida, and he just wrote writing to tell me about how, just the changes that in his life, and how they've been happening. And in his letter, he shared with me that he had been involved in like gang life since he was 13 years old, and just was kind of going into details about just different things that he just kind of grew up experiencing. And I think one of the things, like immediately when I was reading this, and it's a thought that came to mind, it's like, wow, like how, for most of us, right? Before we're even, you know, as kids figuring out, you know, who we are as a person, we're already being shaped by a completely different world. And for him, it was gang culture, right? For me, it was, you know, more so drug culture, drug trafficking and stuff like that.

And, but today, right, he's sharing in his letter how he's writing gospel songs. And, you know, he talked about how, you know, some of his old habits are starting to lose their grip, and some of his old desires are starting to fade, and just even some of his old ways of thinking just no longer just feel normal to him, right? One line stood out to me in particular, he said almost, he said it almost like, like he was surprised as he was saying it, or at least that's the way I read it. And it was that the old life doesn't even pull at him the way that it used to. And as I read those words, the one word that came to mind for me was just resurrection. And what is it, 2 Corinthians 5, starting at 17, it says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sin against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf. We be reconciled to God. And I think that, I don't know,

there was a number of things that he has said in his letter that really kind of, that really stuck out to me, but just seeing his life change and just the trajectory that he's on now, like it just, I was just so reminded of like even my early stages in my walk. And even as I'm still continuing on my walk and recognizing like daily dying and growing to surrender, that's something you'll hear me talk about regularly, this piece, or not dying to surrender, but dying to self and growing and surrender. But that's something you'll hear me speak on regularly. Something that he had mentioned was how he was talking to God about some things. And as he was talking to God, he just ran across like one of these episodes and he was like everything that he was talking to God about, I just happened to be speaking on in one of these episodes. And I was reminded again, like, wow, God, I remember like early on, like that is how God used to speak to me regularly. I remember I used to say, God, anything we talk about in private, you then reveal in public, right? Like whether it's a message or a song or a conversation I'm having, like you would use these avenues as channels to like help me to understand or to communicate to me what some of the things that we were talking about in private.

These people had no idea who I was. They don't, you know what I mean? And it just happened so frequent where I'm like, this isn't by coincidence. This is by design, God. This is how you're speaking to me. So being able to, you know, then be that for somebody else. And I remember like how much that poured into me and how much that helped shape me in my walk and my thinking and how much of even like some of the things that he would share with me back then, you know, through whether it's sermons I'm listening to or whatever, like how much of that is still like very foundation, foundational to my faith walk now. I think that, I don't know. So to me, it was definitely just a blessing. just reading and seeing it, but speaking to, you know, his, um, his transformation that, that, that was just so apparent, um, in his, in his letter, I think, um, I think for a lot of us, we've tried to change ourselves, right? We've made promises and we've started over, we've turned over new leaves, um, said things, okay, things will be different this time. I'm gonna do it different this time. And honestly, just to really find ourselves right back at some point where we started. And I think that's where the gospel honestly is just such a good news. Um, God never asked you to become a new person. That's, that's nowhere in scripture where he's telling you to become a new person. He actually, he, he's promising to make you a new person. We're like, that's on him to do not on you, not, not on your own, you know, um, strength, right? Like it's, it's not striving to be better. It's surrendering and allowing him to form you into this new person. What I heard in his letter wasn't self-improvement, right? It wasn't behavior modification. It wasn't somebody just trying harder or, um, someone who's, who's,

who's just, you know, restraining, you know, harder or just gotten better at resisting it. Like, that's not what I heard. What I heard was just evidence that the Holy spirit was at work in this individual, man. I think when, when God's begins transforming a life, he doesn't just, he doesn't just transform behavior. He changes desires. He changes identity. He changes what you love. He changes what you want. And in most cases, this may not happen overnight, but the proof isn't so much perfection, um, by your own means, the proof is actually redirection. Like that's what repentance is. It's it's redirection. It's, it's, it's, it's changing the trajectory of your life. The old life slowly loses its grip while the new life begins to grow stronger. My mom used to say that this is feeding your spirit, man. Like this is your spirit, man, versus your flesh, right? Your spirit, man, is getting stronger. The more you, you feed the spirit, man. And the more that you, you know, spend time in, in, in time and prayer with God and in your word and things like that, that's feeding your spirit, man. I've seen this illustration before where you have, um, you have like, when it talks about warring flesh and spirit, and it's like, if you have two dogs and you feed one dog and, and not the other one, and then they fight which one wins, right? Naturally, it's going to be the one who's better fed than the dog who's been deprived. And that's, that's more so like the, the, um, us investing in, in, in this relationship with God. I think, um, the resurrection, um, it's just at work in us as we're, as we're feeding our spirit, man. It's, it's, it's, it's new creation, right? Like, that's what I hear in this young brother, man. Like you see as, as he's sharing, like how, you know, he's dying to his old ways. You're seeing this new creation, um, that he's becoming not by his own works, but by the power of the resurrection, by the power of Christ, who's living through him. And it's like, if God can do that in this individual, he can do that in YouTube. I've seen like, that's what he, that's my story. There's no one who's, who's like walking this thing out where, where it's like, that's not their story. That's how, that's, that's how God operates. That's how God chooses to operate. And, um, just wanted to just, just, you know, without putting too much of like his story out there. But I think that even as I've, you know, read his, his letter and, um, you know, live my own life. And I've read a number of people's letters like this. It's, it's not necessarily, we don't need to like hyper-focus on the level of seeing or what it is that we're wrestling with. But the answer is still the same. It's us becoming these new creations in Christ and us growing and surrender

and dying to self. Um, as I always do, I got a question for you. Are you trying harder or are you surrendering deeper in your walk, in your, in your ways, in, in, in, in, you know, your desire to be more Christ-like? Are you trying to muscle up the strength and the ability, um, to just do harder, to do better, to try harder? Are you striving forward or are you just growing deeper in surrender? Because that's, that's the path forward, growing deeper in surrender. Um, I pray for us. Holy Spirit continue your transforming work in me. Change what I cannot change. Make me into the person you've created me to be and help me to trust the process as you do your work. Amen.