By: Jake Kircher
During this season of “Stay Home, Stay Safe,” our family has committed to regularly going on walks together. On one recently my son was given clear instructions about holding my hand to ensure that he would avoid the poison ivy on the edge of the path. Rather than listen, he decided to fight it tooth and nail. He wanted his independence to go wherever he wanted.
“You need to surrender,” I frustratingly told him. As soon as I said it, I knew that I just as easily could have said it to myself.
The truth is I like my independence as much as my son does. Many of us are the same way as a sense of being in control makes us feel safe. We want to call the shots and have life go the way that we want it to. In a sense, this is part of what we are watching play out as protests about reopening states have taken root over the last week. We have all found ourselves in a situation that is highlighting just how little control we really have and we want it back.
Don’t get me wrong, there are ways we can control some areas of our day to day lives. We can set schedules to help our kids do school work. We can choose to stay in our homes or not to. We can control how we go out if we need to run an errand or get out of the house. But there is so much we can’t control. We can’t control the person who isn’t taking social distancing as seriously as we are. We can’t control whether Peapod has an available delivery spot. We can’t control when the weather makes it harder to even get outside. For every dynamic in our lives that we can control right now, we can probably find many more that we can’t.
Even more so, on a larger scale there are no guarantees about tomorrow (see James 4:13-17). For every opinion piece that looks at how all this ends, there is an alternate view. No one can tell us exactly what the world is going to look or feel like a month from now, let alone what “normal” will look like eventually, or how long it will actually take to get to that point. No one even truly knows if we will have to face a second or even a third wave of infections.
When we find ourselves anxious, scared and feeling out of control, rather than fighting for more control, it is important to understand the importance of surrender. This is exactly what Jesus does in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he is arrested as he prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42 ESV)
What Jesus models through this experience, and even more so with his approach to the cross, is that he purposefully enters into his pain and his intense emotions and surrenders them to God. Jesus doesn’t avoid them or seek comfort instead, but he prayerfully brings them before God in honesty and humility. He asks for the pain to be removed, and yet at the same time declares trust in God’s bigger plan that there is a purpose behind what he is facing.
In many ways, what Jesus prays before facing death, was the original version of the serenity prayer which encourages us to pray:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
The things that we cannot control or change simply aren’t worth the fight. Yes, we can and should lament and bring our authentic feelings to God, but eventually, we can either choose to let our feelings own us, or we can choose to trust and surrender to a Father who has a bigger perspective than we do and who is ultimately in control.
What would it look like for you to be fully honest with God this week about your feelings and emotions?
What friend or family member can you be vulnerable with to share what’s going on inside of you in this time and how it’s revealing your true trusts?
What would it look like for you to surrender the things you can’t control to God today?
What would it mean for you to pray the same surrender prayer as Jesus?
