LEAVE IT THERE | If You Give It to Jesus, Don’t Pick It Back Up | 35 Years Kept

LEAVE IT THERE I've learned something about surrender. It's easy to say, “Lord, I'm giving this to You.” The hard part is leaving it there. We pray about something. We place it in Jesus' hands. We tell Him we trust Him. Then nothing happens as quickly as we wanted. So we start worrying again. We start trying to control it again. We start telling Jesus how we think He ought to fix it and when we think He ought to get it done. Before long, we've walked right back over, picked up the same burden we supposedly gave Him, and started carrying it again. That's what “Leave It There” is about. I learned this lesson through the biggest surrender of my life. On September 20, 1991, I had reached the end of myself. Alcohol and drugs had taken me to a place where I was ready to throw my life away. That day, in tears, I surrendered my drinking and drug problem to Jesus Christ. I didn't tell Him how to fix me. I didn't give it to Him for a little while to see what He could do with it. I laid it down. And I left it there. That doesn't mean Jesus instantly fixed everything else about Larry Clark. He didn't. Thirty-five years later, He's still working on me. I've made mistakes sober. I've worried about things I shouldn't have worried about. I've tried to control situations that weren't mine to control. I've prayed about things and then caught myself trying to take them right back out of His hands. I'm still learning what surrender really means. But there's one thing I can look back on after 35 years and know: The drinking and drugs stayed where I put them. At the feet of Jesus. That's why this song means so much to me. “Leave It There” isn't saying that if you pray, Jesus will immediately make every problem disappear. Sometimes the answer isn't what we expected. Sometimes His timing isn't ours. Sometimes surrender means accepting that we don't know what He's going to do next. It means trusting Him anyway. I've had to learn that surrender isn't giving Jesus a problem and then standing over His shoulder supervising Him. It's giving it to Him. Trusting His will. Trusting His timing. And resisting the temptation to pick it back up just because the answer hasn't arrived yet. There are still things in my life today that I have to remind myself: Larry, you gave that to Jesus. Leave it there. Maybe somebody listening to this song is carrying something they've already prayed about a hundred times. Maybe you've laid it down before and picked it back up. I understand that. I've done it too. But I also know what happened when a broken man finally reached a place where he had nothing left to bargain with and surrendered the biggest burden of his life. Thirty-five years later... I'm still sober. Not because I fixed myself. Because Jesus Christ met me where I was, and I finally stopped trying to do His job for Him. Lay it down. Trust Him. And leave it there. 35 YEARS KEPT By the grace of Jesus Christ. And counting.