Surrender
Verb: Abandon oneself entirely to (a powerful emotion or influence); give in to.
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Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
I’ve been wrestling with the word surrender for some time now, and over the years of grappling with this word, its meaning and significance have morphed with each round.
In the beginning, surrender meant giving up more of my monetary and material possessions and comfort. It meant choosing to forego a latte and putting that money into the offering plate instead. It meant dedicating my savings to missions trips and not caring so much about material possessions because “wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
However, this definition of surrender just didn’t suffice because, at some point, it started to feel like I was giving and giving to an insatiable God. After all, He’s infinite. How could I ever satisfy someone like that? Did God really want me to become like a poor widow and wring me of everything until I surrendered my very last two cents?
And, that question led to another — would God really be happy if I did surrender all that I owned to Him?
Then, 1 Corinthians 13:3 came into play:
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Of course! How could I have been so simpleminded? God cares about the heart. After all, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). Duh.
So, I went gung-ho and declared that I would surrender my whole heart to God, that I would love Him so much that it would look like I hated everything else.
But, this revelation also inevitably led to burnout. To be completely honest, I couldn’t find the formula for loving God more and more each day (and I still don’t think I’ve found it). I became so focused on what I could do to prove that my heart was surrendered to Him. And again, nothing was enough, and I started to question just exactly who I was trying to prove my love to. What is to God, or was it more to myself?
If it was to God, it was pretty much a meaningless cause because He already knows my heart. If it was to me, then this was also pretty much a meaningless cause because if I was loving God to prove to myself that I had surrendered completely to Him, then the bottom line of all of this was selfishness.
My wrestle with surrender has shown me that there is so much danger with copying and pasting Scripture. The more and more I read Scripture, the more I realize that it truly is a comprehensive story, and I can’t just take bits and pieces that I like and apply them to my life whenever it feels relevant. When we are selective with Scripture, we end up with broken and incomplete understandings of such important things, like surrender.
And, Scripture is powerful. God’s Word is alive and active, sharper than a double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Words can deliver healing and bring forth good work, but they can also cause deep pain and deteriorate a person. When we don’t give Scripture proper reverence, it can be detrimental to our faith. It truly is like giving a sword to a child. The sword in itself is not a bad thing, but when in the wrong hands, it can cause devastating destruction (don’t even get me started on the many churches left with a broken aftermath due to leaders who abused Scripture).
With that, I came to realize that instead of trying to fit Scripture into my life, I need to fit into the life of Scripture. And, that’s what surrender looks like to me… for now. After all, given my past track record, the meaning of this word is most likely to change again in the future.
For now, surrender has become letting go of my usual way of thinking. It’s a challenge to the beliefs and worldviews that I already have. More than giving up due to failure, surrender has become opening my mind to whatever God has in store.
I say this because I’ve noticed that there are many times where I become so reliant on my convictions that I become defiant to the ways that God wants to change me. I have often mistaken unshakeable faith with stubbornness and unwillingness to change, and I’m learning that yes, I must be firm in my faith, but I must also be malleable and moldable to be shaped into who God wants me to be.
So right now, surrender looks like just being okay with how each day turns out. Not every day has to meet my expectations, and this doesn’t mean that I’m adopting a nihilist mindset. Surrender means playing by God’s rules. Playing by His rules doesn’t mean that I have to fit into a rigid structure. Playing by His rules means acknowledging that He is in control and having the openness to have Him do whatever it is that He wills, knowing that He is capable of infinite possibilities.
Surrender isn’t just about giving up and making sacrifices. It’s about creating openness so that the open spaces can be filled with the things that are near and dear to God’s heart.
Surrender is an exchange — as I make room for God, He fills my life with things that carry actual weight and meaning. It’s like an exchange of pyrite for genuine gold. The real stuff is significantly weightier, of more worth, and more meaning. So, when we choose to surrender to God, we can’t expect life to suddenly become easier. When we surrender our pyrite for gold, it can take time adjusting to the shift in weight, and we have to develop the muscles to carry more weight. But thankfully, God carries this weight with us as it was never meant to be handled alone. He yokes Himself to us, and we can learn from Him.
So, surrender is an unfair exchange, but it’s because we receive so much more for letting go of lesser things. It’s not so much about giving up and making sacrifices. Yes, those things can happen in the process, but ultimately, surrendering is choosing to embrace a life of openness. It leads to freedom, as it sets us free from our old ways of thinking and putting our hope in the wrong things.
With that being said, I hope that we are all able to take some time today to examine just one thing in our life that is holding us back because we are holding on so tightly to it. We may not be completely ready to drop everything, so thank God for His patient love. We can make small movements — first loosening the strength of our grip, then letting go finger by finger. Do as much as you can for today knowing that God is doing much on His end for your eternity.
