I Surrender

Written by Joe Beckler

This article is courtesy of HomeLife.

While paddling down the Nantahala River in North Carolina a few years ago, my kayak suddenly flipped in a rapid, and I found myself submerged in icy, dark water. In a matter of seconds, I went from being in control of the situation to being upside down in a wet, murky world where I felt completely out of control.

My first instinct was to fight the current. But I knew from kayak training that to get back to the surface, I had to roll with the current. I knew that fighting it would actually diminish my odds of getting back to the surface safely. So with a gentle pull of my arms and upward motion of my right leg, I was above water again.

In many ways, that experience of having to give in to the strong force of the river parallels the panic many of us have when, in the current of life, we have to give up control and surrender ourselves completely to God. So often we'd rather settle for less if it means we can go on thinking we're in control. But no matter how large or small the situation, we falter when we fear the very thing that's necessary for our survival — allowing God to have control.

A Subtle Deception
Everyone has tasted, at some point, the unsettling feeling of being out of control. Whether illness, a lost job, marital struggles, or a troubled child, we've felt the angst of being turned upside down in an out-of-control moment.

Yet surrender isn't just about the extreme uncontrollable circumstances we experience in the rush of life. Our days are filled with simple decisions regarding how we'll organize our day, spend our money, and relate to other people. Indeed, most of life's events seem manageable and controllable. So we conclude (consciously or unconsciously) that most of life is running smoothly — and we see little need for God's intervention in the everyday, routine events.

This is a dangerous, though subtle, deception. Leonard Sweet, in his book Soul Tsunami, reflects on our seeming ability to control everyday life. In postmodern culture, Sweet explains, people try to live like little gods, shaping and controlling our daily events. "Postmoderns," he explains, "now have unprecedented powers — power to change life, to change themselves, to change the world. Postmodern culture is a sucker for the serpent's lie: 'You will be like God' (Genesis 3:5)."

Our struggle is failing to recognize that, at best, we have a fragile hold on life. The reality is that our lives are submerged in a struggle to grasp and hold onto control. Surrendering offers an alternate way of life. It's a spiritual discipline and gift offered to us by God.

A Tug-of-War with God
Surrendering control is a recurring theme in the Bible. Throughout the Scriptures, we see a tug-of-war tension between God and humanity.

Consider Abraham and Sarah's story in Genesis. Sarah lived with the pain of infertility for years. Aging rapidly, Abraham and Sarah feared they wouldn't be able to produce an heir, even though God had already promised this unlikely couple that they would parent a great nation.

Held up as a great couple of faith, Sarah and Abraham struggled (like the rest of us) to give themselves to God when it came to His divine promise. So they decided to come up with a plan to "help" God fulfill His promise. Sarah gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham. Hagar became pregnant and gave birth to Ishmael.

Hagar's child became a source of tension in Abraham's house. Envy and strife eventually pushed both Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. Abraham and Sarah simply didn't surrender to God's timing. They took matters into their own hands and failed to trust God.

Abraham and Sarah's story is actually a mirror image of our current struggle to trust
God. Just like Abraham and Sarah, we each face the uneasiness of being out of control and having to trust God. And just like Abraham and Sarah, we tend to muddle things up when we try to help God speed things along.

Learning the Art of Surrender
The prophet Isaiah used the image of pottery to communicate our born need to surrender. He offered a beautiful depiction of our relationship to God: "We are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands" (Isaiah 64:8).

The unnatural move, according to Isaiah, would be to hold tightly to the reigns of control with our own hands. That means, believe it or not, that surrendering is actually our created response. Surrendering to God places us in the hands of a graceful and divine Potter who knows best how to shape our lives.

Each day we have the chance to let God take our lives and mold them into something divinely sculpted. And, if we let God have the small everyday occurrences, we will then be ready to surrender ourselves when the hard and uncontrollable events emerge.

Surrendering Your Greatest Struggles
Greg and Alison Tart understand what it means to surrender to God in the hard, uncontrollable moments of life. At a five-month checkup during Alison's first pregnancy, they learned of serious complications that their doctor could only speculate about. They prayed that their daughter would be healthy, but they had to prepare themselves for the possibility that she wouldn't survive or would be born with severe disabilities.

On the day of their daughter's birth, they were amazed. Adeline came into the world crying and moving, doing everything on her own. Greg and Alison, overwhelmed with
joy and tears, rejoiced in the miracle-birth.

Greg remembers seeing the concept of surrender as "giving up" or "losing." After walking through this experience, however, his perspective changed. He now understands surrender to God as simply acknowledging, "I can't handle it anymore." He explains, "Our situation created desperation and a need to cling to God."

From Panic to Peace
Whether surrendering your everyday life or giving God your greatest struggles, we must learn to relax. This returns us to the image of kayaking. When a kayak flips, a boater has two options: Panic and diminish the odds of rolling back to the surface, or relax and move with the river current. The kayaker who relaxes and lets his or her boat and body catch up with the current of the river can easily roll the boat upright.

It's the same with learning to surrender to God. Our first reaction when it comes to surrendering is the submerged feeling of panic. We might be waiting on God's help, but when the current of stress begins to feel turbulent around us, we sometimes panic and attempt to take matters into our own hands. It's when we act prematurely in our own strength that we deny the Potter access to delicately shape our lives.

Joe Beckler is a church planter, resort minister, and freelance writer living in Durango, Colo., with his wife, Cheri, and their 3-year-old triplets, Josh, Kyle, and Ryan. When time permits, he loves kayaking the rivers in the Colorado area.

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