Real Trust Requires Surrender

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai, Leviticus 25:1–27:34

Rabbi Jude Caracelo, Kol Mashiach, Melbourne, FL

Behar-Bechukotai is another double Torah portion, and the last two parashot in the book of Leviticus. We are right in the middle of the Torah, and these portions have a significant amount of rules and laws that the Israelites had to take on and follow as part of their covenant with Hashem. There are laws about redemption of property, redemption of a fellow Israelite brother, regulations on vows, and even rules for how to treat others with kindness. Hashem was teaching the Israelites the right way to live life – his way. Sometimes this could mean they were told to do things that just didn’t make sense to them. And that required that they trust God and surrender to his will for their lives. And the same is true for us today. We, as followers of Yeshua, are called to a life of trust & surrender to the Lord’s plan for our lives.

The double portion begins with the shemita, the sabbatical year: 

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.” (Leviticus 25:1–5)

The Children of Israel were subsistence farmers, so they had to sow and reap their fields to survive. If you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. You could not provide for your family. Can you imagine what they may have said when they heard these words from Hashem? “What do you mean we can’t work our fields for a whole year? That doesn’t make any sense. We won’t survive!” I can certainly imagine this, because this is what I most likely would say. But what this statute, and this double Torah portion teaches us, is that frequently the Lord has us do things that just don’t make sense to us. This requires us to trust him. Trust is defined as a reliance on the integrity, strength or ability of someone or something. In this case, the Israelites had to rely on God and trust that he would make the right decisions for them. They had to allow him to direct their lives. 

We can see this pattern of trusting God even when it doesn’t make sense with other people in the Bible. One such character was Abraham. He trusted Hashem when he was called from his home country and his people and told to go to a new land he didn’t know. He trusted Hashem when the Lord promised Abraham a son, even though his wife Sarah was barren and could not have children. And he still trusted God, when he was told to then take the son he had long been promised and sacrifice him on an altar to the Lord. 

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1–2) 

What was Abraham’s response to this request from the Lord? The Biblical text goes on to tell us that Abraham rose up early the next morning and set out with Isaac to the place of sacrifice. In obedience, Abraham trusted God and acknowledged him as sovereign over his life. Would we have that type of trust? Or would we argue with the Lord? If I’m honest, and the Lord asked this of me, I could hear myself probably having a nice Jewish discussion with him about it. “Lord, can’t you see I have trusted you already so much in my life? I need a break here! Why does no one else have to sacrifice their son but me? Listen, I’ll do anything else. Please just let me keep my son!” 

Of course, Abraham didn’t say this. He went forward and was about to sacrifice Isaac when God intervened at the last second. In this instance and in many others, Abraham demonstrated a consistent pattern of reliance on God and not himself. Like Abraham, we are asked to trust God with our lives over and over. Trust is not just giving God the reins once in our life, and expecting a “well done, good and faithful servant” in the end. This type of repeated trust is demonstrated by us surrendering our lives to him. What is surrender? Simply put, it is giving up our idea of how our lives should be run and accepting God’s idea for us. As he lays out his direction for our lives, we display that Abraham-like trust. 

Looking back at our parashah in particular, and the entire Torah in general, we see Israel being called to surrender everything to God. This meant in all aspects of their lives, and it included their idea of how life should go. They were called to do everything God’s way and not their way. That can seem easy for us when God asks us to do something we understand. But it is required even when we don’t. And frequently we don’t understand! We are called to surrender our lives to God. Yeshua our Messiah said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). 

King Solomon once wrote, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The Israelites had to learn to trust God and surrender to him when he asked them to take a sabbatical year every seventh year. Abraham had to trust God and surrender to him when God told him to kill his long-awaited son. And as followers of Yeshua, each one of us is to trust God and surrender to him with whatever he calls us to in our lives. Even when it doesn’t make sense. 

Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV).