The Art of Surrender

In my experience, all aspects of personal growth are enabled by surrender. To fall in love, we must surrender our defences and allow ourselves to be truly vulnerable; to achieve a dream, we must abandon caution and surrender to its energy.

In a recent article, I wrote about the process of surrender that led to a life-saving breakthrough in mental health issues. The anxious person is in a battle with themselves, anticipating and reacting to their own emotions. Anxiety demands that we be on guard, tense and ready to flee, and the resultant internal brittleness makes us fragile, likely to shatter at the slightest tap.

My younger years were blighted by chronic anxiety that almost took my life, and the solution was found through surrender. Breakthrough occurred when, instead of protecting myself by remaining on constant guard, I chose to quit fighting feelings of anxiety and let God defend me instead. Philippians 4:6-7,

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

In surrendering to God, I found that even the most intense rushes of anxiety were washed away. When I stopped defending myself, the Lord stepped in as my protector and has never abandoned that post in the 25 years since.

Surrender is a love word.

From a military point of view, surrender is a defeat, but when it comes to love, surrender is mastery – the ultimate expression of trust. In this sense, surrender is synonymous with ‘yielding’ – another word that means defeat in the context of combat, but in the context of love, is a beautiful act of trust. We can learn to surrender to God as one dancer yields to another; one lover to another.

Discipleship, then, is a journey of ever-deepening surrender to the One who loves us most. The first step is the most counter-intuitive of all – we are called to surrender to Jesus’ service. When Jesus bent to wash his disciples’ feet, Peter objected, thinking it was they who should wash Jesus’ feet rather than the other way around. John 13:3-9,

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Peter’s second response is a perfect example of surrender. It can be difficult to accept the love of God, especially when that love comes in the form of service, but to receive the grace and mercy of God, we must first accept his humility. We must surrender to Christ’s service, allowing him to love and restore us, though he is God and we are not.

When Thomas struggled to believe his friends’ testimonies of the resurrected Christ, Jesus appeared before him to banish his pain. In the presence of his Lord, Thomas surrendered his resistance. John 20:26b-28,

Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

The service of God touches every area of life.

Psalm 23 rejoices in the manifold service of God to his people:

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’

‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.’ ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord

Forever.’

This wonderful psalm is about the personal leading of God throughout our lives. The Lord isn’t like a shepherd – he is my shepherd, your shepherd, our shepherd. He is personally engaged in our individual leading – an act of tender, protective service. He shepherds us, leads us beside still waters, restores our souls, teaches us the ways of righteousness, comforts and accompanies us through dark times, prepares a feast for us, anoints our heads with oil, fills our cups to overflowing, chases us with goodness and mercy every day of our lives, and welcomes us into his eternal presence. Such service! Such mercy! And for us to walk with him closely, we must surrender to his love in every way.

This is the nature of a life of faith – we are forever being wooed by divine love. The Bible expresses our surrender in a myriad of ways – we work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12), we labour to enter rest (Hebrews 4:11), we put off the old and put on the new (Ephesians 2:22-24), we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), but surrender is the crucial energy that enables our transformation.

Each of us is a masterpiece, conceived in the creative mind of the Almighty, but we are all in need of restoration. He restores our souls – our emotions, our innocence, our ability to trust, our enjoyment of simple pleasures, our delight in life and in Him. Every aspect of our growth, every moment of repentance, every step of faith, is an expression of surrender. Our humble God does not impose obligations; nor consider us in debt. He doesn’t measure our progress with a critical eye. Instead he calls us to surrender to his love, and in doing so, we become more loving – more like Jesus – which in turn will lead us to manifest that love in the form of service for others. Only an Infinitely Loving Mind could create so beautiful and redemptive a process!