Good morning…
Leading a yoga class on the beach, the instructor said an interesting phrase, “Surrender. Do nothing but allow…”
I have never really considered the practical definition of surrender. When I look it up now, I discover these addition phrases. Stop resisting an enemy. Submit to the authority of an opponent. Give into the powerful influence of another. Then I find my way to these simple synonyms. Yield. Relent. Succumb. Acquiesce. Relinquish.
Surrender is what Jesus did. He surrendered his own will to the greater will of our Father. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus struggled with his own human craving for comfort, begging God to take away his personal cup of suffering. Eventually surrendering his “big I” to the great “I AM,” Jesus erected his sails into the strong winds of God’s higher will, winds that blew him through humiliation, torture, and death. When I go to Israel with my husband and two groups of you in 2021, one place I cannot wait to experience firsthand is the garden of Gethsemane. This is the sacred spot where Jesus’s “big I” died. His physical body died later on Calvary’s cross.
In that fertile garden, Jesus surrendered. He did nothing but allow. He did not initiate. He did not force. He did not resist. He did nothing but allow the winds of God’s will to set in motion complete salvation, freedom, wholeness for all. In that quiet garden, Jesus showed us what surrender looks like very practically. Yield. Relent. Succumb. Acquiesce. Relinquish all to the Creator of all.
Now, walking the path Jesus laid out for our feet, it is our turn to surrender our whole selves to the winds of God’s higher will for our ordinary lives. No initiating. No forcing. No resisting. What “is” is. What “is” God allows. Erecting our sails in the winds of God’s higher will, what “is” right now we do nothing but allow.
When we struggle with our own human craving for comfort, might we also allow these words to flow from our lips into the open ears of our compassionate Creator? “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42, NLT).
…Sue…
