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The power of surrender

Jan Johnson

Should I? Shouldn’t I? I picked up the telephone twice to call a woman who had criticized the way my teenage daughter dressed for church. Should I explain that we came from an informal, beachfront church? No, too defensive. Should I tell her to mind her own business? Tempting, but no. Why couldn’t she just turn my daughter over to God as I had?

Um . . . maybe I needed to turn this woman over to God, too. As I did so, I saw my heart: My problem was I didn’t want people to think less of me. I’d surrendered this issue to God before, but I needed to do it one more time.

Surrender isn’t easy for those of us who think that being a “good Christian” means being successful. We think that, given time, we can fix anybody or solve any problem if we roll up our sleeves, pull up our socks and hustle hard enough. After all, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Even in our relationship with God, we strain to be good enough. We read books, listen to tapes and attend seminars to find precise formulas to reshape ourselves for the better. We live under the illusion that if we acquire complete control, we can do God’s will. The solution is just the opposite: We have to abandon control, to surrender our need to achieve more, look more attractive and own more stuff, and to find rest in God.

Letting go is both too simple and too hard. It looks like weakness instead of strength, like losing instead of gaining. Yet, as we relinquish control and admit weaknesses, we remember who we are and why we’re here. The sun does not rise and set on our achievements, but on the love of God. Life is a journey of coming to know God, not achieving or gaining others’ approval. It’s OK for us just to be, and love God. Through that being, God will do mightier works than when we try so hard.

Surrendering requires that I become skilled at recognizing my inner neediness and hearing my self-absorbed motives. Why must I achieve – so that I can do something spectacular like the people I read about in magazines? Why do I act as if I can earn God’s grace and approval – do I think I can manipulate God’s opinion of me? This need to control is rooted in fear, but I need to do the thing that is rooted in faith – surrender.

Sometimes I go to church early on Sunday morning and climb the steps to the balcony where no one else goes. I sit, and pray. One more time, God, here are my children. One more time, here is my hunger for glamour and glory. Responding to God’s call to surrender forces me to value my brokenness as well as my strength. As I accept my limitations, I give God permission to work redemptively in my life, just as He did when He moulded Paul, a mass murderer, into the author of nearly half the New Testament. Paul’s brokenness kept God’s grace front and centre, allowing him to declare, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Jan Johnson is a retreat speaker from Simi, Calif. and author of When the Soul Listens and Enjoying the Presence of God.

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Last modified August 22, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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