Surrender is not defeat

Surrender is not defeat.
It is trust.
I’ve been asking myself why surrender feels so difficult for us.
Not just surrendering to God.
But surrendering our hearts in conflict.
Surrendering our need to be understood.
Surrendering our need to control the outcome.
Surrendering our fears.
Why does letting go feel so much like losing?
Why does it feel like giving in?
I don’t think we fear surrender because surrender is dangerous.
I think we fear surrender because, somewhere along the way, surrender WAS dangerous.
As children, surrender may have meant being overpowered.
It may have meant your voice didn’t matter.
It may have meant disappointment, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, abuse, neglect, or loss.
Your nervous system learned that if you didn’t stay alert, protect yourself, or stay in control, you were not going to be safe.
So this belief formed…
If I let go of control something bad will happen.
If I surrender or forgive I have to give my safety up too.
That belief doesn’t stay in childhood.
It follows us into marriage.
Into friendships.
Into leadership.
Into conflict.
And sometimes…
Even into our relationship with God.
That was my experience.
When I felt as if the world, a person, a group or a system was going to hurt me that if I “surrendered “ my will to Gods in that moment I would be defeated. Destroyed.
But instead the moment of surrender is deliverance.
Not defeat.
When conflict arises, we often aren’t just fighting the disagreement.
We’re fighting the vulnerability that disagreement brings with it.
Here is what I have learned from asking God to help me understand why when I am in conflict, hurting or feeling unrest that laying down my will feels like defeat.
It is because surrender feels like exposure.
If I stop defending myself, who will?
If I soften up, they’ll win.
If I stop trying to control the outcome, everything will fall apart. That’s what my mind, my nervous system… my survival strategies tell me.
But the Kingdom of God completely redefines surrender.
The world teaches that surrender means someone else gains power over you.
The Gospel teaches that surrender means you lean not on your own understanding. You trust God for the outcome not that you desire.
But the outcome for the highest and best good for all.
This is why Jesus could surrender Himself to the Father without becoming powerless.
He wasn’t surrendering to evil.
He was surrendering through evil into the hands of His Father.
Even in Gethsemane, Jesus wasn’t passive.
This is the part I’ve always wrestled with when church people tell others to bypass emotions and your feelings don’t matter.
Jesus models how emotions are expressed in a healthy way.
He expressed His anguish.
He revealed His desire.
He acknowledged the cost.
And then He entrusted the outcome to the Father.
That wasn’t defeat.
That was perfect trust.
Perfect trust.
I wonder if this is why Scripture says…
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in You.
Isaiah 26:3
Peace doesn’t come because life becomes controllable.
Peace comes because trust makes control unnecessary.
The more I heal, the more I realize that survival tells me to ask…
How do I stay safe?
But abiding tells me to ask…
Can I trust that I already am?
When I know I am held by the Father, I no longer have to grip every circumstance with white knuckles.
This is rest.
Maybe that’s the deepest definition of surrender.
It isn’t giving up because you’ve lost.
It’s releasing what you were never meant to hold because you’ve discovered Someone infinitely more trustworthy than your own grasping.
Surrender is not the loss of power.
It is the end of self-protection as the source of your peace.
Surrender is not defeat.
It is trust.
Surrender is the birthplace of deliverance.