Surrender vs. Giving Up: The Beauty of Entrusting Ourselves Fully to God
When we hear a word like “surrender”, it tends to conjure up images of soldiers in battle, waving their white flags, and agreeing to be overtaken by their enemies. I wonder if sometimes we let that imagery seep into our Christian walk when the idea of surrendering our current circumstances to God comes up. We might not say it out loud, but somewhere down deep, we view God as a bit tyrannical, and we believe that surrendering our circumstances to him will lead to pain, or at the very least, displeasure or discontentment.
For this reason, and a million others, we can tend to close our fists tightly around our circumstances. We want to hold them in our own control—and if they are entirely outside of us, we at least want to hold our emotions regarding them in our own control.
I’m here to offer the gentle reminder that in doing this, we are forgoing the abundance of peace that comes from entrusting ourselves to One who isn’t our enemy at all. (In fact, he is the very one who gave the life of his own son for the sake of our saving.)
Remembering the gracious love of God—and his propensity for his own glory—can completely change our day-to-day experience of life itself. Maybe you’re thinking that statement sounds a bit extreme, but if you’ve ever felt stressed, you know that it can wind up tension in your body and impact the way you interact with everything you encounter. Peace acts just the same. Experiencing peace at a deep level seeps into every ounce of your being, and flows into the world around you as you move through the moments of daily life.
Maybe you’ll see a bit of your own experience reflected as I describe how this has played out in my own life:
As I navigate new projects, undertakings, or circumstances, my heart can quickly shift from a posture of wanting to follow where I believe Jesus is leading to “Okay Jesus, I’ve got this. I see where we’re headed and I can hop in the driver’s seat now!” It’s no surprise that anxiety comes sprinting around the corner as I quickly realize my own incapacity to accomplish the purposes of God.
When I arrive at this place of feeling incapable, it seems there are only two options: strive my little heart out, or give up entirely. Like most, the natural tendency of my heart isn’t yielding to failure, and sometimes giving up when circumstances seem impossible feels like a form of self-preservation.
I forget about this most beautiful option offered to me: to entrust my task or situation entirely to God. Everything changes the moment we surrender fully in our hearts, knowing that God himself will accomplish his purposes in whatever lies before me. He will do so in love, and he will do so for Glory. As I step forward from a place of peace-filled humility, I enjoy the fruit of handing everything over to the one it belonged to in the first place.
I hope you are able to quiet down from the race of life enough to listen keenly to the state of your soul, and that you’re able to receive the gracious reminders from God, reminding you that he sacrificed so very much in order that you might never need to enter this place of anxious striving (or completely giving up).
Surrendering ourselves to God forgoes this harmful striving-or-giving-up cycle that we can all-too-often find ourselves in. Below are a few ways that I would describe a heart of surrender:
Trusting in God’s providence: knowing that placing our lives in God’s hands is the best place we can be. He will accomplish in us just what he intends, and this life’s journey—for those in Christ—will well up to an all-beautiful life in eternity.
Releasing the outcome of circumstances: remembering that we exist for God’s glory, and that he will accomplish his purposes.
Courage to risk: when we humbly passed ownership to God, our pride leaves the equation. We are able to walk more boldly, unconcerned with our own humiliation. We know our life is God’s, and our security in him brings great courage.
(!) BIG, BEAUTIFUL GOSPEL TRUTH AHEAD (!)
This idea of surrendering is central to the gospel, and from my vantage point, seems to be a common way God works in the lives of believers. Just like God called humanity to a standard of perfection (outlined in the law), he also calls his children to lofty tasks—seems that seem to big for them. And just as the law allowed us to see our frailty and failures, often these roles God puts before us bring us to a place of realizing we are entirely incapable of accomplishing them by our own strength. In the over-arching Gospel story, it was entirely necessary that we surrender ourselves to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. We were doomed without him—and the gracious gift, offered to us in his life, results in praise of our Incredibly God. So it is with us, as we surrender these little microcosm moments, we see the glory of God on display. We watch his strength rise up in all of our weakness, as the message becomes clear: entrusting ourselves fully to the hand of God was the best white flag we ever waved.
