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People are often too blinded by having total control over their lives that they forget how spiritual surrender is the greatest emotional release.
The word surrender has and likely will always have a negative connotation.
Nobody wants to be a loser or to feel inferior to another. What more when this loss entails not even trying one’s best or completely giving in, conceding in a competition, or submitting over another’s control? Surrender means losing without the attempt, even paying out, or even before the competition has begun. A loss of control and power is how submission is defined in everyone’s mind.
People will always hesitate to surrender when it’s associated with loss and defeat. Even when times are the toughest, and the challenges are the harshest, people strive to overcome and fight with all their might than lay everything down and wave the white flag.
However, this definition becomes hugely different from a religious perspective.
When Surrender Doesn’t Equal Losing
There’s something ego-bruising about giving up, but only when perceived through the wrong lens.
Similar to the power in softness, contrary to strength and aggression, there is also empowerment in surrender. When one surrenders, it doesn’t always mean they’ve failed or deserve punishment. Often, people surrender when they realize and acknowledge what they don’t know. It’s grasping the unknown and taking one’s power over it. It’s a sense of remission and recalibrating one’s control over their lives.
Hence, when people surrender, they give up, but not in their lives, nor is it in means people believe surrender is. Instead, they give up the notion of forcing control over the things they don’t have power over. It’s the avoidance of excruciating pain from not managing or not having the capacity to achieve results.
Similarly, this is how Christians should also live their lives in spiritual surrender.
Author Chet Shupe talks about this in his Spiritual Freedom Press, where he mentions that regaining spiritual freedom equates to letting go. It’s doing what feels good and avoiding what doesn’t. Spiritual freedom is as simple as accepting what nature allows people to enjoy without fighting against what’s meant for them. Spiritual freedom lies not in outwitting the world but in going with the flow, in surrender.
However, things are easier said than done.
People Hold Back When Spiritual Surrender Matters
Spiritual surrender is letting go and removing the burden off one’s shoulders. As much as it’s liberating, it may also be challenging, for it goes against people’s survival-activated nature.
It can be tough laying everything down for the supreme creator’s control, especially when there’s no guarantee that everything will be resolved in His hands. Spiritual surrender is a test of faith above anything else. However, acknowledging and embracing one’s weaknesses and shortcomings is challenging regardless of how faithful or spiritually aligned one is. But one must remember God only allows hardships that one can overcome and triumph over. This should be enough assurance that whatever the situation is, everything falls into place when it’s time to.
Spiritual surrender is a powerful process that helps people make pieces of what they can’t control. It’s acknowledging the trials and losses without mourning over them. This process is how people can learn to be okay with not being okay and in constant control of their lives. It’s a powerful release and liberation from the aspects of life that shackles and brings them down.
Surrender may look like defeat. But it’s accepting and trusting that God will always find a way to redeem oneself. It’s shifting from having a constant and straining fight response to peace and acceptance of what is and what should be. It’s having faith in God and knowing He is in charge of one’s purpose.
There Is Power in Accepting Powerlessness
Spiritual surrender doesn’t mean yielding in defeat. Instead, it’s an act of realignment and the acceptance to be realigned. Everyone has power, but not over everything there is to dominate. Acknowledging where one’s authority ends and leaving it to God’s control is a gift of peace and relief. Accepting this powerlessness and the limitation to one’s agency means accepting to be offered and sent into God’s arms, where one is empowered to achieve the right things.
When people let go of control and seek the power that spiritual surrender offers, the opportunity to be redirected to where they belong appears. They receive support and guidance from a more prominent source of wisdom and experience more profound things they wouldn’t have if they continued desiring control.