Bible in a Year and Devotional

This year, I set out with the best of intentions to read my Bible through in a year.  I have been extremely negligent in my quiet time with the Lord in years past, and having a daily plan, I think, will motivate me...as long as I don't get too far behind.  Truthfully, I committed to this about a week after the New Year, so I had to catch up at the beginning.  I am following a chronological plan that incorporates an OT reading for morning and a NT reading for the evening.  I am actually doing both readings at any point in the day that I can.  I am reading it in the New Living Translation through OnePlace.com.  I just saw that this site has an online registration for such things, but I have a printed checklist of passages that I'm using to keep track of my reading.

I am an on-again/off-again reader of on-line devotionals, such as Streams In The Dessert, hosted by Oneplace.com.  I read it today, and was amazed with how this fit in to where I'm at right now.  

In an address given to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday, George Mueller spoke thus of himself: "I was converted in November, 1825, but I only came into the full surrender of the heart four years later, in July, 1829. The love of money was gone, the love of place was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. God, God alone became my portion. I found my all in Him; I wanted nothing else. And by the grace of God this has remained, and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man, and it led me to care only about the things of God. I ask affectionately, my beloved brethren, have you fully surrendered the heart to God, or is there this thing or that thing with which you are taken up irrespective of God? I read a little of the Scriptures before, but preferred other books; but since that time the revelation He has made of Himself has become unspeakably blessed to me, and I can say from my heart, God is an infinitely lovely Being. Oh, be not satisfied until in your own inmost soul you can say, God is an infinitely lovely Being!' --Selected

Through different studies and attending church, I am hearing the message of surrender.  In fact, that's the theme I'm focusing on as I read through the Bible.  I didn't think I had a problem with surrendering to God or submitting to my husband, but I am convinced that this is a daily decision to lay aside my will, my desires, my wants, and place God over all.  This book, Follow Me, is really transforming my thinking on what a true relationship with God looks like.  Today's Bible study contained these passages: 

 "If I want the benefit of salvation, it will cost me my personal sovereignty, my independent autonomy, my own agenda, my "throne".  Why?  Because that is exactly what I must be saved from in the first place!...the heart of our sin problem is our self-centered need to be in control...Grace, the supernatural forgiving love and transforming power of God, is released through the deliberate act of giving up the kingdom of  self. Giving up is not a "work".  It is a cessation of resistance."

WOW!  There is so much there to chew over, to meditate on.  I have a self-centered need to be in control.  As George Mueller said above, God is an infinitely loving Being.  Can I trust Him enough to reliquish my control over to him?