Surrendering the Last Five Percent
by Katie Harding on October 24, 2022
In the same way Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and it changed his life, I had my own Damascus Road experience in October twenty-one years ago on the Dulles Toll Road as my headlights lit up the exit ramp near my home. It had been a long, hard day of staff disagreements and difficult patients, and I felt done. In a moment of desperation, I surrendered what I had been trying to hold onto so tightly for many years – control. I cried out to the Lord and said, “Father, I am so burned out, broken, and burdened. I am so tired of trying to make things happen and manipulate people and situations. I am done.” In that one moment, I was letting it all go. Then I said, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. Wherever you want me to go, I’ll go, BUT…if you want us to go to Africa, you tell Mike.”
It was less than a year after my mother died, and I had gone back into the dental field to manage the practice of my dentist and prior employer. However, I was still grieving and didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with some of the challenging dynamics. As I drove home, I felt so done.
Several years earlier, one of the pastors at our church had asked me what I was searching for, and I answered, “Success.” I wanted to be successful as a wife, mother, Sunday School teacher, leader, and worker, in whatever field I worked. That night on the Damascus Road I was still searching for success, yet I felt as if I was failing miserably. My salary had gone up, but so had my stress. So, I surrendered, not just my circumstances, but myself as well.
I had been a Christian for twenty-eight years, yet there was still that five percent of life I didn’t want to let go of and give to Jesus. Five percent sounds so small, yet it was a big five percent. That five percent allowed me to falsely believe I could maintain ultimate control, but that night, I let go and surrendered it all.
Even though I loved Jesus, prayed to Jesus, and tried to walk in step with Him, prior to that night whenever women would mention the name of Jesus in such an intimate way, I felt a void in my life. I couldn’t describe it and didn’t mention it to anyone. I was a church leader and Sunday School teacher, after all. But occasionally it would show itself, so I knew it was still there.
However, after that night, my whole world began to change. The Lord said, “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all of your heart…” (Jeremiah 29:13). Instead of seeking success, I began seeking diligently after God. Not with ninety-five percent of my heart, but all of it.
I rose early the following morning to have time to pray before my family got up, yet as I closed my eyes to pray, I found myself fighting the feelings of sleep. I knew this way of praying was not going to work well for me, so the next day, I tried praying with my eyes open. It was as hard to focus with them open as it was with them closed, because I was so distracted by everything I had to do around my house. The third morning, even though I came from a family of writers and had previously professed, “I’m not a writer. I do math,” I began journaling my prayers. The more I wrote, the more I listened, and the more I listened, the more I heard, and the more I heard, the more I wrote. Before long, journaling became a way of life.
In giving up total control that night twenty-one years ago, life hasn’t been easy. In fact, I have faced some of my greatest challenges, both individually and collectively within our family. Yet, the past twenty-one years have also been the best years of my life, because I've lived them in an intimate relationship with Jesus. The void I once felt was gone after that night on the Damascus Road, never to be felt again. When we seek the Lord with all of our heart, the Lord said, “I will let you find me…” (Jeremiah 29:14). And find Him I did.