Surrender

Surrender don’t come natural to me
I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really want
Than take what You give that I need.
And I’ve beat my head against so many walls,
Now I’m falling down. I’m falling on my knees.

I have always struggled with surrender. I don’t want to lose control, even if I know that God being in control is far better than me. It’s like that line in the Casting Crowns song: “Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control?” I would begin to give God control over small aspects of my life that I felt like were “destined” to go well, but when He would demand control over the more scary things, like my future, or a relationship, I would fight Him for it.
Last Sunday, after Laura Jo and I had hung out, and said goodbye, I was heading back to Raleigh with a heavy heart. I wanted desperately to be in Greensboro because I associate Raleigh with negative emotions, with hurt, etc. I wanted to stay. I didn’t want to go home, and I admitted that aloud. As I was driving home it started to rain. And then I started crying. And then I started praying out loud. I looked up and I heard God ask once more for control. I knew that giving control wouldn’t make everything happy and wouldn’t solve my problems, but it would simplify them. Not because they would become fewer in number but because my desire to “fix” everything and everyone, including myself, would lessen. I relinquished control on I-40 and something has changed this week. I am freer than I ever imagined possible. I think I understand now that verse that says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Somehow I’ve always viewed the idea of giving up control as becoming apathetic. It’s quite the opposite, though. I haven’t stopped caring about the things or people in my life, in fact I care so much about them that I know I must release my desire to control them in order to love them well. When I live under the assumption, or when other people believe, that me being in control is healthy and ultimately good, we’re fooling ourselves.
I also realize now that I was my own false infinite. You know how people are always saying, “He alone is God?” I always think of that in terms of idols, like a golden calf, but I was my own God in a lot of ways, and my own false infinite. Although surrender isn’t natural for me, I truly have traveled down enough other roads and seen the ultimate destruction they lead to. And I know where true life is found.
And the surrender thing? It’s a daily prayer. I didn’t just pray it once on the interstate last Sunday. I pray it daily, because daily I am tempted to take back control over things when they seem hard.
And my guess is that that innate reaction is born out of a lack of trust in God. But that’s a whole other post.