Singing about Surrender

The theme of this morning's sermon was surrender. "God calls us to be a people of surrender," Trevor Devage said as he began his sermon based on the Ephesians passage about wives submitting and husbands sacrificially loving. But the biggest challenge came in the call for all of us to "surrender all" to God and his will for our lives.
We sang a new worship song this morning, "The Stand" by Joel Houston.

So I'll stand, with arms high, and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
I'll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered. All I am is Yours. 

My eye caught a view of a longtime friend sitting close to the front row of the auditorium as I sang with the worship team in the 9:30 service. I'm not sure she was trying to sing the new song, but her eyes looked upward, and in that instant I remembered all the ways she has lived a surrendered life in all the years I've known her. The swelling volume of the song and the repeated vow of surrender combined to make me ponder all that surrender means, the day in, day out pursuit of duty: obedience to God and devotion to family and commitment to service, even if the hours are long or the tasks are a burden.
It seems to me that one reason we need to assemble as a church is to see each other and to be reminded of the Christian examples living among us.
I'm writing this at the end of the day. The emotion that welled up in me in that moment this morning has long since passed. The week waits before me, and I'm praying I'll remember the words and the melody of that new worship chorus, and the example of that old friend--and many others like her I could name. I need to experience surrender and not just sing about it.

I snapped a couple of pictures of the crowd greeting each other at the beginning of our worship service this morning.