In church recently, we sang the song I Surrender All. It is actually an old hymn, originally published in 1896, and over the years has been sung by many artists and in many different styles.

What does it mean to surrender? Not usually thought of as a positive term it’s connected to giving up or submitting to someone. It’s waving the white flag and it is most often connected to failure.

As a reminder, here’s the opening verse and refrain:
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

But do we? Do we freely give? Do we surrender ALL?

I choose to surrender all – all except my time, my paycheck, and my focus.

On the flip side, if we do choose to surrender all, we get to surrender the bad stuff too. We give up our regrets, our unmet goals, our sorrows, and our doubts.

This next week we celebrate the birth of a Savior. Someone who came in the form of an infant, who had no choice but to surrender to a mother, father, manger, some random animals, and God.

So my prayer is to fail less by surrendering more.