Monument — a 5-Day Devotional With Andrea OlsonSample

"So I lay down my life

A living sacrifice

I’m on the altar

Here I surrender"

                    -Lyrics from “Monument” 

Surrender. It is such a hard thing to do. Especially in hard seasons, like when God seems silent, or we are waiting on an answer or a miracle. It’s easy to get lost in our own worlds. But what if God wants to use our circumstances as a testimony to impact future generations? What if our current circumstances had less to do with right now and more to do with what is to come? How would that change the way we live? It just may be the refocus that we need.

Joshua 4:21 explains to the Israelites the reason for building their monument. It says, “In the future, your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’” Imagine if…the pivotal purpose of your current season was so that your children could ask about them in the future. It’s a convicting perspective for me, personally, because it means that I have to lay down my wants. I need to lay down my desire for wrongs to be made right. But it’s also freeing. It reminds me to look outside of my trial, look up and see how my life and choices impact others. It isn’t easy, but it starts with surrender.

What can you surrender today? How can you refocus the lens of your current circumstances and view them through the lens of God’s more excellent plan that is beyond what we can see now and more incredible than we can imagine? As you reflect, ask the Lord to reveal these things to you, and I encourage you to write them down as a reminder to surrender.