Episode 8: Surrender

Before we start unpacking this word ‘Surrender’, I want to preface by saying this: sometimes I don’t think this word is helpful, because for the average person the reference point for such a word is a battlefield where one army surrenders to another. Whilst that can be apt in describing our relationship with God prior to accepting Jesus, it’s not accurate in describing our relationship after we receive Jesus. Interestingly, this is another word that isn’t really used in scripture. Certainly not in the manner in which we use it in the body of Christ. The more common words used to describe this phenomenon is yielding or submitting. Nevertheless, I will continue to use the word for the sake of this podcast episode.

So what is surrender?

It basically means the process of giving ourselves up. This may mean giving up our dreams, our desires, our plans...all as an act of relinquishing control. I would hazard a guess that in almost all cases, a new believer is unlikely to be able to give up every part of themselves to God immediately after conversion. In fact, they probably wouldn’t understand why they would need to surrender. And most non-believers wouldn’t get it either. But the process of making Jesus our Lord, and not just our saviour depends on this process. And that is why surrender is this ongoing journey for every believer. A journey that I have to admit I see very few modern Christians adopting into their walk with Jesus. I’m just being honest. There seems to be a significantly smaller number of believers that are thinking about how they want to be more surrendered or submitted to God. It’s just not nearly as common a message, or as common a discussion point. But it is a critical value if we intend to live the fullness of faith that God said we could.

The Christian journey of maturation is not about gaining more knowledge, knowing more scripture, being more stable, serving in a church, giving, or any other description that is often used to determine if someone is mature in faith. These are often the qualities church leaders are looking for to determine if a person is growing in faith. But the Bible has far more to say on what it takes to be a disciple. My observations are that the Christian journey is one of continued and ever-increasing surrender. Which has sometimes involved walking away from things that seem spiritual to others out of obedience to God. 

Yes, it is a journey of ever-increasing surrender. If we aren’t MOVED out of sheer worship to give up more of ourselves for God now than we did a year ago, we ought to ask ourselves whether we’ve really been allowing God to work in our lives? 

God wants to change us. But He isn’t trying to change everything about us. He is only trying to change those things that cause us to be selfish, or that make it hard for us to love God and love other people, as he defines love. Sin at its core is self-serving and self-debasing. It harms societies and it harms ourselves. Hence why it is at the core of God’s change management plan. He is not trying to change your personality, your likes, your gifts and talents. He actually likes you, you know? So when we break off hindrances that God is always leading us to do (if we are paying attention to his invitations) naturally we will love better. We will love more and love more completely.

The five types of Surrender

1. Surrendering relationships. 

This may include severing harmful relationships, surrendering those selfish expectations you have of your spouse or children, your mother or father, your siblings, your pastors and leaders, or your church members if you are the leader...As long as you are a believer, the Holy Spirit will be leading you to some type of surrender within your relationships. And it makes sense right because people are God’s most valuable creation. He loves people...and if I am standing in the way of His ability to love them well through me, then He is going to bring to the surface the dysfunctional ways in which I am relating to ensure that I get better at letting Him love them. 

2. Surrendering a process.

There are times when you have to go through something that may grow us, mould us, or even heal us. The times I have journeyed with young adult ladies that have gone through a break-up, this painfully common statement tends to be blurted out at some point “Why is it taking so long to heal? Shouldn’t I be over this by now?” Nobody actually knows how long healing really takes. In the midst of the pain, we can make some assumptions about what is normal. But chances are, it is probably going to take longer than you thought. This is an example of surrendering the process. Pain has its own timer. And try though you might, you can’t force it to heal quicker. It’s the same with gardening. If you have ever had a go at planting carrots, you know that besides ensuring the right conditions, you know sunlight, the correct amount of water, the soil...and planting it at the right time of year....besides all of that, you can’t make the carrot grow faster. It will take, how long it will take. The only control you have is making sure the conditions are right. 

So whether it's some attitudinal change, healing or the process of becoming more like Jesus...it would benefit us to surrender that process to Him. It’s the only way we can be completely sure that the process does happen and that it finishes well.

3. Surrendering our calling

We are all called to do certain things on this earth. I’m not really just talking about career either. Some of us are called to be mothers and fathers. Some of us aren’t. I should add, that I don’t necessarily think that we are called to one thing in life. I think it can change - David was a Shepherd, but He became a King. We have assignments that God gives us to do in life. We somehow deciphered the voice of God, even if it is far less spiritual than that...and knew that this was what we were meant to do. 

The not so great thing about our calling though is that we have a tendency to become really possessive of it. The fact is, and leaders pay attention, the call of God is not actually ours. It’s His call, and we get to respond. But we don’t own the call. And we certainly aren’t entitled to it, or anything it brings to our life. It’s His decision to call us, and He can change it if He wants. Pastors - Your church...sorry to say...is not actually yours. It’s Gods. 

4. Surrendering the flesh

In some cases, this is a process. Sometimes it’s not. I’ve heard of people who have been instantly healed of alcoholism, and others that have had to go through counselling and AA meetings. Either way, the journey of becoming a more obedient follower of Christ, is also a journey that requires surrender. Sometimes when we see so much wrong with ourselves, we can eagerly pursue change. BUT our reason for the change is not supposed to be because we sense inadequacy or because we don’t want to make mistakes. It’s supposed to be our offering. So that He gets the glory for the transformation. It says in Philippians 1:6:

“He who began a good work in you will carry it onto completion”

The responsibility of completing this good work in us is God’s. Our job is to keep responding to His invitations to grow and change. 

5. Surrendering an outcome

It is an incredibly frustrating and painful truth to reconcile, but the fact is that all of our faithfulness does not guarantee OUR desired outcome. I find it so painful reading Hebrews 11:13, where it says that all of these people who in faith believed...never saw their promise come to pass whilst they were living. They died before it happened. The Author says it again in verse 39.  

The outcome we would love, the result that we are looking for and dreaming of...we are meant to surrender that too. Faithfulness is supposed to be motivated by a desire to be faithful, not to get what we want. I love the story of Joseph. I have heard so many people preach about Joseph that He had a dream and He didn’t give up on that dream. Well, actually the text is not really explicit about that. We don’t even know whether He wanted the dream He had. Based on the way He cries frequently through the story about His family, I wonder whether he would have preferred living out his days with His father. The text says God gave Him a dream. It also doesn’t really say that He was faithful to that dream. He was just faithful, wherever He was. He, just like us, didn’t know how exactly that dream would come to pass or even if He would be alive to see it. He surrendered the outcome. Thankfully for Him, the outcome was good. 

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you work your behind off in a church and the church has to shut down. Sometimes you love your kids like crazy and they hate you and don’t want to speak to you. Sometimes you are so faithful to your spouse, and they are unfaithful. The outcome of our faithfulness is not predictable, nor is it guaranteed. What faithfulness does guarantee is that God will be pleased with you and that God will honour your faithfulness at some point. And so, we must surrender the outcome, whether it is in our favour or not...

You’re probably getting a bit of a picture that surrender isn’t for the faint-hearted. It is not something that you can do without a deep knowledge of Jesus and this ongoing redemptive work in your life. It is probably not something that you could walk out without growing respect and acknowledgement of His loving kindness. 

He’s already done it

In Romans 12:1 Paul has just unpacked at length this idea of grace. He then says this:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

In another version, it says this is your reasonable worship. Paul is basically saying, because of everything God has done for us, giving up his life and body, even just coming to earth when He could have stayed in heaven! It’s only reasonable that our pure worshipful response is to offer ourselves to the one who became an offering for us all. See when God asks us to follow Him with complete surrender, He is only asking us to do what He has already done. Jesus surrendered every and any personal agenda He could have had, to complete this mission...He didn’t get married, He didn’t pursue a career, He didn’t have children, He didn’t get himself a decadent home. He surrendered his life for us. Thousands of years later, He is still serving us via the Holy Spirit. Giving, loving, listening, sharing, speaking, prompting us, protecting, saving, leading, encountering, answering, healing, comforting, pursuing, patiently waiting, divinely coordinating, intimately, passionately, loving and serving us. This is who we are offering ourselves to, a saviour who continues to give himself in selflessness to the Body of Christ, and this world. 

In the book of Hosea, God asks him to marry a woman who is known to be an adulteress. Because He wants to express the narrative of His relationship with the Israelite people, through the life of Hosea. I remember when I was around 20 years of age, I read this book and I was stunned. How surrendered to God could Hosea have been if he was willing to marry an untrustable woman for life? All so that God could speak through his story. And I made this zealous and bold commitment to God, I wanted my life to be His story. Even if it had me humiliated, rejected and excluded. Much to my dismay, God has answered my prayer a fair few times! And as much hardship as that process has attracted, I don’t regret it. I would do it all again.

What aren’t we seeing about surrender?

As a society, we are very uncomfortable with the idea that we might not have control. In fact, we are quite ignorant of how little control we actually have. Our Biblical ancestors knew that so little was in their power. When it came to the authorities they didn’t vote in their leaders. Many of their leaders were ruthless conquerors and dictators that forced their dominion upon them. In our day, particularly in the western world, we can elect our leaders and we know that we have the collective power to force change. 

Our biblical ancestors’ financial status was also often controlled by the elements, rain or lack thereof, fire, snow, cold, etc etc...now this is still true for us today particularly in the case of farmers, but because most of us sit in an office on our laptop writing emails and sipping coffees in meetings, we can be oblivious to the fact that the elements have such a say in our future. So we take charge of our lives and careers, changing jobs, climbing ladders, never thinking that some outside force could rattle the clearly laid out 5-year goals we’ve made. We think the only barrier to us controlling our future, is if our goals weren’t clear enough. 

Our biblical ancestors' health was influenced by the scarcity of food. And whether a priest could heal their sickness. Now we go to the shops and the only thing that stands in our way of having food is whether we have overspent on Uber eats, or if it’s a lockdown and panic buying has ensued. And we don’t go to a priest for healing, we can go to multiple different kinds of doctors, take meds, have operations, generally with a high rate of success…AND the government or our private health insurance pays for a decent proportion of it. At least in Australia.

The point is: we have a facade of control because of sheer ignorance. We don’t see how little control we have, so we assume we are in control. Until something like COVID comes to burst our bubble. COVID clears the fog so that we can see a truth that we’ve been avoiding for some time: We don’t have that much power. How could we? We don’t even have that much control over ourselves.

The byproduct is that something like surrender is not a natural practice for us. We aren’t in the habit of actively letting go. So then God asks us to surrender, and we continue to interpret our relationship with Him, within the context of a life experience where we think we have all the power over our present and future. When we hear a message like “surrender”, it doesn’t compute. Our sense of entitlement kicks in.

“Nobody has a right to take my power.”

“I can do what I want.”

Ok sure. But the truth is, you can do what you want, if it’s within a set of circumstances that are generally accessible to people like you, if you have the correct amount of money and/or resources, if you are in the right place at the right time, if you know people and those people aren’t also pursuing their own wants, assuming that the things you have right now aren’t affected by what you want. Mmm…

The irony is...we are CONSTANTLY giving away control. When we vote someone in, it might be our preferred candidate….but we are giving power to this person to do things on our behalf for our country. Even if you like the person and prefer their policies, they still can basically do what they want as long as it is constitutional for the next 4 years (or whatever the specific timeframe is for your country). The only risk is not being popular, and being voted out at the next election. Big deal! They still get a paycheck for the rest of their lives. When you go to the doctors and follow their prescribed treatment plan, you are submitting to their power of knowledge. And hopefully, they get it right. When we go to the grocery store to get our food, which we probably don’t have a huge choice on when you live in metropolitan areas...you are surrendering the entire process of procuring and storing as determined by that grocery store. We all know that the major grocery store chains freeze the fruit, but we still buy it. Because we surrender our need to know the details of that process, in exchange for convenience. What about social media though? We know that they use analytics and the like to give us what we want to hear/see...much of which may not be good for us. Much of which increases our likelihood to hate and/or be jealous. But we knowingly give control to that system, every time we open the app. We give away control willingly, all the time to entities and people who have far less interest in our lives and well-being than God.

So here’s the thing: God isn’t trying to control you. When He asks us to yield or to give way to Him, it is not so that He can control us. He doesn’t control anyone. AND He still makes it your choice. There are no passages whatsoever in scripture that affirm this idea, that God controls us. Even when we say God is in control, like over the world, that is not completely accurate. He reigns, he has supreme power. But He isn’t some puppet master, controlling everyone’s actions. Jesus wasn’t controlled by the Father. He chose everything He endured willingly. So when He is asking us to yield He is asking us to lay down the desire to be in control, even though we ultimately aren’t. He is asking us to bring down the walls and limitations, and give Him access to every part of us, just as He has given us access to Him. There isn’t a hint of control in it. He is asking us to willingly allow Him to be our leader. A leader that intimately knows those who follow Him and cares deeply that you aren’t controlled by anything, including sin the greatest oppressor in this world.

If you are going to surrender to someone because obviously we are all submitting and surrendering to so many forces that we ignorantly trust, every day. Wouldn’t it make more sense to surrender to God, who can be trusted? 

How does this relate to the sense that ‘something is missing’ message?

As I do in every episode, I now want to bring this back to the whole point of this podcast. There is something missing in our faith. So you know I’d only be talking about something like this if it holds some hope of resolving that specific issue. So how does surrender, or lack thereof, contribute to this overall feeling that something is missing?

With everything we know about God, and life, and what He will do with this earth, and everything we know about eternity…it seems as though our attachment to this life is quite redundant. And yet we are VERY attached to this life. We are constantly trying to build a more comfortable, more pleasing life for ourselves. Knowing full well that none of it helps us in the life after this, nor anyone else, and all of what we have here will most likely pass away. Even our spouses probably won’t be our spouses in the life we live after we rise again. And yet our lives can revolve around them, and around this rat race. The rat race is run by rats, people. Which makes us the rats...That is not a flattering analogy for us.

Just consider this. Jesus actually goes so far as to say in Matthew 5 that if your eye or hand impedes your ability to stay faithful, cut it out and cut it off! Leave it behind, rather than leaving your soul behind. 

The point is: If there is anything that interferes with your ability to be consumed with love for Jesus. If there is anything that interrupts your ability to be unwavering in faithfulness to follow Him in any aspect of your life, it is not worth it.  

We are far too attached to this life and all that we can have in it. More attached than we are to Jesus. And then we wonder why we are still hungry, and why we are still thirsty. When Jesus called Himself the bread of life, he was telling us that we must feed on Him alone, if we ever want to be free from spiritual hunger. Even the last supper He asks the disciples to eat of his flesh and his blood. Obviously, this is all symbolic, but He is saying that only He can sustain our souls. Anything else that we feed on simultaneously enslaves us. And we have far too invested at that point, to know the difference. Even good things. I love my daughter, but if being her mother was the only thing that fed my soul...my soul would eventually die...AND I wouldn’t actually be a great mum. I’d be a selfish mum. And this is why we must continue to follow Jesus, stripping away anything that clouds our vision of Him. He knows you better than you know yourself. In fact, He knows all. And He is worthy of our submission. 

We are safest in God’s will?

So some of us are listening to this thinking yep I know all about this surrendering thing Mel. Decided to do that a long time ago. Because we are safe when we are in the will of God. I remember hearing this and repeating this when I was a young adult. But now looking back I think...sorry what exactly do we think God’s will, would keep us safe from? 

In Acts 20:22-24, the Apostle Paul is saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders. He has been with them for three years! These are some of his last statements to them:

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Over the course of my Christian life, I have heard so many sermons about storms. The basic outline is that when we are going through storms Jesus is there with us and He will get us through. Underpinning every storm message is the idea that the goal is to eventually get out of the storm. Never have I heard a message encouraging believers to run TOWARD the storm...like Paul is doing here. So many of Paul’s followers and friends were warning Him and pleading with Him not to go to Jerusalem. Because they all knew what was awaiting His arrival. Harsh persecution and probably death. Now, why in the world and how in the world could Paul have had the courage to walk toward such an obviously ill fate? Surrendering to His will doesn’t keep us safe from hardship, in fact, sometimes it will have us walking toward it! I can run toward the storm, not because the storm doesn’t scare me, but because I know that all I need to thrive in that storm can be found in the person of Jesus. That’s what I call Godly resilience. When you are able to look toward Him for all your strength, and not to the circumstances to aid your comfort.

The kind of resilience that we hear about so much, is defined as the ability to adapt and bounce back when you have a curveball thrown at you. Godly resilience is when our ability to adapt is based on a history of giving things over to God. It is a direct product of surrender. Being able to relent when we could fight, stand when we could act, listen when we could speak, love when we could hate, forgive when we could punish, delegate authority when we could enforce...these kingdom principles happen because we get comfortable with letting things go. Because letting things go, isn’t like shaking out a blanket and watching the dust dissipate in the air. For those who follow Him, letting go is more like an exchange. When we surrender, when we lay it all down...we are simultaneously making space for Him and every spiritual blessing.

Taking Up Your Cross

In Mark 8:34-36, Jesus is talking about what it means to follow Him. He says:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

The language in this passage is so forward! It says MUST. You must deny yourself. It is implying that to be deemed a disciple, a follower of Jesus, denying yourself and taking up your cross is the central criterion. Otherwise, you’re not a disciple. Wow, this is not a fluffy message. Jesus is so boldly laying it on the line. 

In Jesus’ time the cross represents death. If a person were to carry their cross, it would mean that they were walking the path to crucifixion. This is really intense imagery. To take up our cross then, is to agree and commit to walk out the road of putting to death the sinful nature and its selfish desires. It is consenting to crucifying those things within us that only seek to serve our most basic fleshly responses. 

The second part of this verse says:

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Here’s the conundrum that Jesus is so aptly announces: in this life you will lose something. But Jesus is also helping us out by acknowledging that there is a good loss and a not so good loss. The good type of loss is one you chose. The bad type of loss is chosen for you. The good kind of loss will have you gain every conceivable spiritual benefit that exists. The bad kind of loss will have you gain whatever temporary fleeting thing it is that you have right now, in this moment. 

Paul described his former life as RUBBISH, in light of Christ. I agree with you Paul, I can never turn my back on what I know about Christ. Even if it makes me a failure in the world's eyes, and a weirdo to my family. We gain far more than we lose, when we take up our cross.