Surrender

Tonight is the third night in which I cannot turn my brain off. There is so much between work, money, family, and the individual. I feel as tho I left shore a month ago and thought I could stay in the bay. Instead, I am almost out to sea, and I can’t tell which direction is back to shore. The sight of land is about to disappear. 

For a 9 (enneagram), this makes me want to numb the crap out of the pain. If the horizon is fading, why wait, let’s swim faster in the direction of destruction. What’s the use of trying? If only I could grasp the root of why I cannot change. I cannot change myself. Only the Potter can mold the clay. Maybe this is not fixed for a reason. 

I must still ask the question. Do I trust the Potter? Am I at peace in his hands? Or do I still want to shape and mold myself? Do I surrender? What does surrender look like? Do I surrender my thoughts? My desires? Can I surrender alone?

Surrender feels like drowning. It feels like a slow and painful death. The suffocation of one’s will to submit to another. Giving up air for water. The violence of the act only lasts an instant, but the moment feels like an eternity.

The grass is always greener in surrender. We are afraid we are leaving greener grass when we surrender. However, the old saying is true. The grass truly is greener. Like the psalmist says, “Lead me by still waters.” To be led means that you must have surrendered. 

All the things the Father wants to do are done through the violent act of surrender. It is death by strangulation. However, God has designed the human in such a way that he is unable to choke himself to death. A safety precaution. (We are stupid people.) In the very middle of the action, when the body reaches the point of death, it loses power. The strength it had is now gone. The very breath that gives life cannot take life. 

To kill the body means the use of outside forces. We kill ourselves with guns, rope, knives, and sometimes gravity. However, our own bodies never finish the job. We may start the process, but someone or something else must finish it.

In the same way, I believe it is impossible to kill the will alone. We do not have the strength. We must add something or someone. If alone, we will arrive at the moment of death to find the strength needed to finish the job is the very strength we are trying to kill. Impossibility is before us. 

I wonder if God, being all-knowing, knew this was the fail-safe. This is why he said it is not good for man to be alone. It is absurd to think that surrender is anything but a two-player game as if tennis were an individual sport. You would be constantly confused, frustrated, and tired. You will waste loads of energy while the score remains nothing. Not Zero but nothing. 

Therefore, surrender, done alone, results in nothing. No progress, no nothing. Just wasted time, energy, and spirit. We are confused, frustrated, and tired with no rest. People who attempt to gloat over their ability to fly solo are those most deceived in our world today. To surrender to someone gives them the power to drown you in a violent death. Flying solo is easy. Surrendering may be the hardest thing you ever do. Surrendering to God is even harder. 

Kill the will, or someone will kill it for you.