Surrender: A Verb Needing Its Object

One year, preparing to lead a women’s retreat in Michigan, the Holy Spirit taught me something new about surrender.

Our concept of surrender to God is giving everything up and yielding entirely to Him, which is accurate.

The voices in our Bible — inspired by Holy Spirit — encourage us to yield our ways, plans and desires to God. Therefore, we make an effort to do so, out of love for God or fear of displeasing Him. But let’s be honest: surrender can also come as a last resort, after doing things your way turn out badly. I speak from experience; often I have been humbled by my own choices. Or forced to face my inability to make life or people — or even myself — be what is desirable.

Surrender is not easy.

On my knees I have often, through tears, said the words I feared I couldn’t keep: “Lord, I surrender.”

I thought of those times as I prepared to meet those women at the retreat. I knew we all struggle with the same things, with fear of loss or some death to a dream or desire we cannot bear. More importantly, I knew that yielding to God leads to more of that abundant life Jesus promised.

But on the front end, surrender doesn’t feel that way; it feels like giving up something that really matters. That’s why I had stories to share with those women of how God had blessed me through surrender. However, I needed to offer them a “take-away” to endure after the retreat was over.

Responding to my thoughts, the Spirit said clearly, “You don’t finish the sentence! Don’t say, ‘I surrender,’ say ‘I surrender to your love!'”

I love being taught by the Spirit of Christ! When He shows me things, He connects the dots to stuff I would never come up with intellectually or theologically.

The Spirit’s words were a key to learning and remembering that surrender is a relational transaction, because you are always yielding TO something or someone.

Why does this matter? Because surrender inherently means giving up something — not easy for our possessive hearts — and the struggle to do so comes from fear that we’re going to lose more than we will gain.

Dictionary.com says of this verb that it is used with an object, and means:

to yield (something) to the possession or power of another.
to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc.: He surrendered himself to a life of hardship.
to yield or resign (an office, privilege, etc.) in favor of another.

Discover the object of this verb

For a Christian, the real object of our surrender is the Person who is the only truly good being, the unfailing lover, the one who died to give us real life.

At that women’s retreat in the Michigan woods I asked each woman to fill in her blank at the end of the sentence:

“I surrender to ______________________________.”

A sampling of the answers they gave:

… to His goodness
… to His rest
… to His faithfulness
… to His peace
… to His grace

I invite you to fill in your own blank. As you consider how to fill in that blank, don’t merely grab a familiar answer. Quiet your heart in the Spirit’s sweet Presence and ask, “Dear Friend, what do you think I need to surrender to in this moment?”

Dialoguing with the Spirit of Truth — your personal helper, teacher, guide and friend — is how God designed your shared life to be with Him. Enabling you to have a real relationship with Him, not a religion or a book. And there is no better way to develop a surrendered, yielded heart than starting in these small moments of listening, trusting, and believing.