Surrendering To Freedom

How Letting Go Is the Key to Peace

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

In last week’s newsletter I dove into the topic of surrender as a way out of constantly seeing life as a battle to win or a problem to solve. Not necessarily a super fun journey, but one that’s been life-giving to me. Hopefully it will be to you, too.

Learning to give up the reins of false-control will feel like death—a letting-go of everything we thought we were supposed to do and be in order to be the free people we have wanted to be all along.

Most of my frustration in life has been rooted in trying to orchestrate all my circumstances and relationships so that my life looks the way I want it to. Pretty normal, right? I mean, we all do it to some extent. But when I woke up to the reality that this quest, for me, has been the source of great frustration, resentment, and depression…I knew something had to change. And it was probably me.

Why can’t I get the life I want? was my constant cry into my Captain Crunch.

My insatiable desire for all the amazing things I didn’t have was completely blinding me to all the amazing things I did have.*

(*I should add here, that I’m still in process, for certain. I’m thankful to not feel shackled like I have been, but I’m also acutely aware of how far I still have to go.)

This is when I could finally begin to understand the freedom that comes from surrendering.

What do you think it means to surrender?

What Does It Mean To Surrender?

To me, surrendering means to stop fighting against the realities of life. It’s an acknowledgment that we’ve been playing our role in the grand theater of life, but instead of settling for just being an actor with a beautiful part to play, we’ve also chosen to be director, orchestrator, choreographer, set designer, usher, and popcorn salesperson. We’ve thought this was the best way to make sure the show went as well as it could. But we’ve been driving ourselves (and other people!) crazy.

To surrender and let go means acknowledging
that I can’t change or control other people or situations.

This is tough for me to acknowledge for a couple of reasons:

First, I feel like I actually have been able to control some situations and change some people. I can’t deny that I have been a positive influence on many people and situations. And I’m grateful for those opportunities. But there’s a difference between control and influence. Control is focused on a desired outcome, and influence is focused on what I can positively bring to a person or situation. Control has clenched fists, and influence operates with open hands. I can surrender my desire to control, yet still desire to be a positive influence.

Second, so much of my life has been based on the happiness I experience when everything goes the way I want it to go. I’ve tasted enough of the sweetness of having things go my way to know that it’s amazing and addictive. It makes sense that I desire to keep going after my passions and dreams. But I have also been overwhelmed by the frustration that comes when I don’t get my way*. I don’t want my life to be marked by this kind of frustration rooted in selfishness.

(*another side note: my frustration usually gets dysfunctionally shoved down, unacknowledged, with me acting like it doesn’t hurt, and then covering it up with more productivity.)

There’s a pervasive sick lie that says, “If I surrender, then I’m letting go of my desire to ever be happy again.” Conversely, the adventurous, surrendered person says, “I can’t wait to see where my happiness will come from now!” In his Serenity prayer Reinhold Niebuhr said it’s fair to aim for being “reasonably happy.”

In a culture that is addicted to amazing, reasonably happy can feel like a let down. But after being mired in frustration, reasonably happy sounds like a giant step up.

Who’s Running This Show?

For some of us, surrendering might also mean acknowledging a new Director—believing that God, who created the stage and all its players, actually knows better than us how this life should go, and has even greater joy in store for us than we ever imagined. With God as the Director, we can believe that everything and everyone is exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. That doesn’t mean people won’t change. That doesn’t mean circumstances won’t change. But the way things are right now can hold a kind of wonder-filled significance, helping us become more of the person we’re supposed to be. Instead of a fighting against, it’s a resting in.

We can start to walk around with open hands, holding on loosely to all we have and being willing to receive what is being given to us, as opposed to a clenched-fist, mine-mine-mine approach to life. Healthy surrendering concentrates less on what needs to be changed in the world and more on what needs to be changed in us and our attitudes. But remember, this isn’t coming from a place of shame or low self-worth, it’s coming from a place of true humility.

Perhaps you feel like life has already enrolled you in the advanced course of Surrender and you’re tired of it all. Like, Done. Sign me out. Unenroll me! I’m much more interested in watching reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” and eating Ben & Jerry’s than continuing with this painful life class. Like the person hanging from the top of the skyscraper waiting for the superhero to come swoop us up and deliver us to safety, we are hungry for rescue. Anyone seen Superman lately? I haven’t. There’s got to be some reason why the lessons keep coming. And where is it all taking us?

I don’t know exactly how God works (be very suspect of anyone who claims they do!), but I am convinced that God is in the rescue business. Another name for this rescue work is redemption, which is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.” There’s that weird word again, evil. Don’t hear me saying that we’re evil, because more than anything I believe that God has made us beautiful, perfect, peaceful, and capable of loving very well. But something happened somewhere along the way that made us think that being beautiful, perfect, peaceful and loving wasn’t good enough.

Maybe it all felt too vulnerable. Or dare I say, reasonable?

We wanted something that felt a bit more like control. Something that appealed to our ego. Something that made us feel like we mattered. All the while, we had everything we ever needed. We were complete. We were enough. But we didn’t believe it. So we kept trying to find something we already have. No wonder life feels so confusing.

I love where this is going. As I surrender the way I think things should go, I am more able to receive the blessings all around me. I’m also able to see more clearly what is my true identity. And those are the waters that I’m going to dive into next week.

Thanks again for being with me on this journey. Please share these essays with a friend who you think might benefit. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

I just read this quote from Henri Nouwen and found it completely apropos to this week’s writing:

When productivity is our main way of overcoming self-doubt, we are extremely vulnerable to rejection and criticism and prone to inner anxiety and depression. Productivity can never give the deep sense of belonging we crave. The more we produce, the more we realize that successes and results cannot give us the experience of “at homeness.” In fact, our productivity reveals to us that we are driven by fear.