Musings on Surrender

Hopes, dreams, trying out, holding on… crushed. The cycle repeats itself, the first time it happens, you are all shocked, accept it as a learning curve, pick yourself up and then try again… Then came the second; this time you are not too confident about the theory of learning curves, and so doubts creep in and you begin to think that maybe you are just not cut out for this, maybe you weren’t called to be, called to try… moan and groan for a while then let go.

The third time in a roll and this time, it just throws you off… I mean you had promised that you wouldn’t venture unbidden, but somehow you found yourself trying again… stubborn heart? Maybe! But this time, you are tired, tired of crying, tired of thinking that you are not called, and you just sit there… wondering why… asking why..

Then it finally hits you: SURRENDER!

Yes, it’s so easy to gloss over and talk about submitting your will to Him, so easy to talk about letting self go but in actual practice, most of us (by most, I could actually be talking about the triplets: me, myself and I) do not really understand what it means to let go, entirely. Surrender is described in this abstract, ‘you’ll understand when you get there’ concept that is all too hard to understand from a practical level, even if ‘you get there’!

Where is ‘there’ anyway?

And so I constantly find myself in this battle; battle to try out and live like Him using my own might. Setting up rules and guidelines for living: only a certain amount of this, do not sit there, no control that… but this rule-setting type of lifestyle gets hard, and deplorably so! And you begin to wonder how do I live a satisfying life?

Then He responds with the ever faithful ‘without me, ye can do nothing!’ And you ask, how am I to have Him, so that I can do everything, yes, get victory over sin! Get the victory without trying, get the victory without failing, get the victory without trying to do it in your might?

The answer is there: have Him!

“My life was not meant to be an example to copy. Being My follower is not trying to be like Jesus; it means your independence is killed. I came to give you life, real life, My life. I will come and live my life inside you so that you begin to see with My eyes, and hear with My ears, and touch with My hands, and think like I do,” The Shack, p. 151.[William Paul Young, 2004]

That is the concept! The more you try to look at Christ like the example on some chalk board and then try to write it down in your book, it’s gonna get hard; but when you let Him live out His life within you, it sure will be easy. The easiest way I know of having Him is to accept Him, and let Him live on your behalf; to just surrender every facet of one’s life to Him. Holding nothing back: giving your social life, your mental, physical, everything! To just be like a free falling feather, not fretful, neither careful… to just give up on you so that He can take control; to put up your white flag!

Am thinking: maybe the reason behind the first, and every other subsequent fall was a pruning process, a reminder that yes you were called, yes you were chosen but you will only be faithful if you let Me live out My life in you.

I have encountered a number of dead ends in my life, and I only realized how dead they were after getting all excited and bubbly about the supposed stroke of good. Then of course, I would sulk and swear to never ever try again… but subtly, and usually unconsciously I found myself trying again. Maybe that is the case with self; always trying to try, always trying to wake up and work, and doing so with a bunch of sweet empty nothings, good old promises that have been aptly defined as ropes of sand. And it is in those moments that you need to stop and let go. Stop relying in your power to do it, but before that, realizing that there is a desire in all of us to live right but the method is where we mess up.

And so in every dead end, am reminded that yes I have been called, yes I have been chosen, to live right that is, but I can only become faithful if I let Him do the living right. To let Him live right in me is indeed right living!

“I have been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me,” Galatians 2:20

Abundant Living, Or Is It?

The world came and promised us bliss; instant happiness without adhering to rules. We were wooed, swept off our feet and so we dashed off logic and reason and followed impulse and off we went, to enjoy this bliss. We were free at last; nothing and no one holding us back.

And so we experienced utopia, and wondered why He said thou shalt not eat when that little serpent was right after all, such pleasures, such goodness. We sure don’t need anything else… well, until we realized that after every party, came a dense form of emptiness, an abyss of pitch black that we could barely recognize ourselves, the people who hours ago had so much fun…

The sadness engulfed us like never before and we felt used, dejected… but the morning came and like opium, we were at it again. Ah, it was just our minds playing tricks, see the world is still beautiful, we just need to live large!

But, the whimpering sadness came back, stronger this time. Soon, we found no pleasure in the so-called bliss. The morning was not a promise of the happiness that lay ahead, rather it was a reminder of how broken we are.

And so we thought to ourselves, maybe there’s more. Let us go back to the world and ask for the abundant living earlier promised.

“Aha!” said the world with an air of pomposity, what you see is what you get. You should have known better that the thief comes but to steal, kill and destroy. We are that thief. And so forget about the abundant living, it doesn’t get more abundant than this.

Meanwhile, the heart of a Father went out to his lost son, and daily He fixed His eye to the same road that granted us what we thought was freedom. Day by day, the Father held on to the forlorn hope that the son would return; that the son would realize that the life of ease so promised was nothing but a fallacy…

Feeling duped and dejected, we came back. The words the world told us were still ringing in our ears! We have been fooled, this is not bliss; this is eternal condemnation. The so-called pleasures were but fleeting, leaving behind them the cold waves of anger, brokenness and pain. O that we would go back home!

Yes! We can go back home, we can say that we have learnt our lesson; that the grass is not at all greener on the other side. We can go with our carefully crafted speech and seek to be even the doorkeeper, just as long as we are free from this chain of deceit…

As we round up our flimsy, rope of sand promise, something in the Father’s heart moves, as if a joyous pang of a hope finally fulfilling… excited, the Father gets up, sees a little dirty figure approaching. The excitement wheels are turning. Could this be?

Stretching the eyes further, the Father sees what he has hoped to see all this time and holding his garment in hand, He flees, running after the prodigal. Before we can even mutter our empty and sweet nothings, the Father throws His rams of love around us and then in that instant show of deep affection, we realize that this is the bliss we forfeited. We hewn ourselves cisterns that could hold no water yet left behind a fountain of living water.

 As the events of our foolishness flash before us, we can do nothing but cry, cry our hearts out and mutter repeatedly, “Am sorry! Am sorry!”

But the Father does not lay it to our charge. He grabs us and in that instant show, we are lost in His love. He erases the tears and takes us in as if the events of the previous moment, when all puffed up with rebellion and a desire for freedom we left home, never happened.

Behold what manner of love, to be fully known [flaws, empty promises, sin-stricken past], yet to be fully loved!