The Work - Part 5
March 29, 2025
Sometimes, the answer doesn’t come. Sometimes, the insights, ritual, or guidance don’t bring a resolution. Nothing works; however spiritual it may be. This situation calls us to do something that most of us resist doing at all costs. It’s the hardest spiritual work of all: surrender.
To fully surrender, we must empty ourselves of ourselves. We have bargained our last chip, made Herculean efforts that were to no avail, given our last coin, taken our last breath, sown our last seed, and made our sincerest prayer…but nothing shifts. Only after we are emptied of ourselves, are we convinced that we alone, can do nothing.
During our son Ben’s long illness, it became evident that regardless of my intentions, efforts, prayers, resources spent, and help sought, that I was powerless. I remember the day I surrendered. It was a surrender of my fatherhood to Ben’s greater parentage.
Surrender is usually the last resort. But as we grow, we learn that it can’t be done before we are empty. Yet, it is still challenging because surrender is the supreme acknowledgment of our powerlessness. It takes us longer to realize our powerlessness when we are desperate. This is when our ego can be in overdrive. But desperation sometimes evolves into resignation, then into surrender.
Surrender is risky. When we surrender, we give up on our strategies… when we surrender to a power beyond ourselves, we are not sure that it will come through or that it will come through in the way we hope. In surrender, we relinquish our control and expectations. In surrender, we exercise supreme faith and trust. Then, we feel another power taking charge. Our wings suddenly feel strong currents of air beneath them. It is work to go against our inclinations and relax into the currents that lift and guide us. But the work helps us trust.
Matthew 26:39 – “My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will but as you will.” These words are in Jesus’s prayer, which he said face down in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion.
Spiritual practice and self-inquiry: Recount those things you have surrendered and let yourself remember the outcomes. As you meditate on these, what has been the virtue in surrender for you?
Dear God,
Help me to pray, “I surrender all.” Amen
