Surrender

Surrender: 1441, "to give (something) up," from surrendre "give up, deliver over" (13c.), from sur- "over" + rendre "give back, present, yield, restore." Reflexive sense of "to give oneself up" (especially as a prisoner) is from 1585.

Surrender to God, it is a term you may have heard, but what does it exactly mean and why is it important for our inner peace? In most worldly cases, surrender is not a word often related with happiness. Often, we confuse surrender with sacrifice and superimpose ideas of fear or loss in place of surrender’s true meaning. For instance, "Surrender! Come out with your hands up!" usually foretells punishment or guilt. Moreover, we know that when troops surrender in battle, it is a sign they have given up any hope for victory.

Sacrifice is the ego’s idea of surrender. All ideas of surrender that entail loss of power mourn only out of the ego’s need to be a separate self in control, at the expense of all else. As a Course in Miracles teaches, there is no reality in separation, therefore only the ego weeps, as it perceives it must give up its self in order to surrender. However, there is no sacrifice in God, simply because there is no possibility for loss in perfect completion. Yes, we are perfectly complete in God and only perfect completion extends. Never wanting or able to lose, God, in His Completion, extended this Holiness to us, His Holy Son, without limit. Therefore, the very idea of sacrifice is impossible and true surrender is total extension of God’s Self in all ways.

In surrender’s true meaning, as we see from its origins printed above, the act of surrender only has us choose to give back and deliver over. If we are to surrender to God, all that we are doing is delivering over to God all that the ego ever thought it could place asunder. A Course in Miracles bluntly asks, “Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God's? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can?” (Text pg. 88) The answer to these questions lies within our definitions of surrender. If we are to recognize how we are cannot successfully substitute another voice for God’s, only the desire to surrender all voices for separation to the Holy Spirit for his restoration remains. Therefore, in this willingness to give back to God all that has always been His, we choose surrender and thus accept all that has always been our Inheritance.

Is surrender giving up? Yes, but it is only letting go of the tension, stress, pain, and resistance that only serve as obstacles to our peace. Surrender is giving up the ego’s need to be in control, to judge and to will for its justifications for incompletion. Essentially, it is giving up the idea that we know better than God. Only in surrendering, do we then render over to God what has always been His and allow ourselves to release into our True Self of unlimited possibilities. This rendering over is the opening of the door to peace of mind.

In another sense, surrender is also a yielding forth. Here we allow our inner strength to yield forth beyond our presumed uncertainty. This surrender then becomes our freedom from all the mental strain that ties us up in resistance and fear. In this yielding forth, we literally choose to get out of our own way, recognizing that we do not know our own best interests. Thus, as we surrender, we ask only for Holy Spirit’s guidance to lead the way and tell us what to say and do in all things simply because he knows us best.

As I write this article, I am coming out of a period of 40 days of surrender. You may ask, “Why forty days?” Holy Spirit led me to this period, guiding that this span of time was the most opportune for lasting growth to yield forth. Furthermore, the Bible, and many other sacred texts, reference periods of forty days, weeks, and years as times representing preparation for a greater purpose. In numerology, forty is a number referring to growth and transition. In fact, we see the number forty cited repeatedly through many life cycles, including the average 40 weeks of human pregnancy. Therefore, forty days of surrender became my period where I asked to gain a deeper sure-footedness of certainty, instead of continuing in my ego’s cyclical pattern of suspiciousness and viciousness.

For each of these 40 days, I kept a journal seeking guidance for daily surrender. Within each day, there appeared a theme. Some days I surrendered ideas of judgment while on other days I surrendered ideas of unworthiness. Overall, I sought to release concepts of need, body identification, loneliness, sacrifice, loss and several other ideas that in the past only kept me fortifying the prison bars of the ego mindset. Using the miracle, each day revealed another opportunity for Self-realization apart from the limited self that I thought I knew so well and vehemently defended. In progression of this practice of surrender, I came closer each moment to remembering the freedom and peace that God Wills for us in His Truth. All it took was my daily willingness to give back to God all that I was holding apart from Him in my mind.

I know what you are thinking… because I was thinking it too. How could I give back everything to God? Is that asking too much? Do I not deserve anything for myself? Yes, you do! You do deserve everything! You do have everything in perfect completion! Only the little will has you perceive otherwise, and so this is all you are releasing. God’s perfect Will for us is always giving all to us – this is our inalterable freedom. Therefore, no right can be set apart from this. Not even your right to judge. Indeed, would you rather be right or happy? Surely, as the Course teaches and as I found in my practice, happiness extends only when we choose to give back to God all the little wills that appear to debate for our own incompletion.

Surprisingly, there were many incidences where I saw how the last thing I really wanted was to surrender. Several daily experiences called my attention to where I chose first to act and second to think again out of forgiveness. The practice of surrender led me to a conscious awareness of how this choice worked better reversed. First, I asked to see through forgiveness and second chose to act in genuine practice of this desire. Yet, even if I perceived I was not taking the action that my mind thought it should be taking, in time, the surrender of this understanding always led to a greater peace. I even surrendered the idea of not surrendering “good enough.” Overall, I came to see that the only thing I was losing was the belief that I actually could lose.

So, what is the point of surrendering to God? The point is simply to realize that it is not with our mind that we see the most clearly. As we choose more to yield forth to the Light of Truth within us, the Light of Truth that IS us, we gain a deeper awareness of how our mistaken ideas have only superimposed fear and loss where there never could be any. Without surrender we cannot see how mistaken these judgments and misperceptions really are. Surrender helped me recognize that it is not with my mind that I see most clearly, but with the Vision of Spirit is my peace best known. Here we fully step back and let God lead the way.

NOTE: For anyone who is interested, I will be leading another 40 days of surrender practice starting on January 1st through February 9th. Email me if you would like to participate. If all goes well with this practice, I may just continue to lead these experiences. We teach what we most need to learn.