Why Does Surrender Feel So Scary?
written by Sam Konda
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 12:24 (ESV)
It was 4 am as I stood trembling in front of the bathroom mirror and whispered, “my life is not going to be the same!”. I had just taken a pregnancy test and to my dismay, it was showing positive. A flood of worries came crashing into my head as I felt an overwhelm of emotions. How will this affect each of us in the family? Is my body ready for this journey? How will my teenage sons react to the news? How did this even happen?! I spent the next three hours with a million thoughts a minute racing through my mind.
What do you do when situations you thought were very much under your control and caution get overridden? Not only were my knees shaking, my whole world felt shaken by the discovery of this pregnancy. As the day unfolded, I sobbed some and googled some. I learned a new word that day. Geriatric pregnancy. Did not know there was such a thing. I took my conglomerate of emotions to God and all that I could manage to say in prayer was in the language of tears. I was very afraid. For the next few weeks, I struggled with 3 things - fear, identity crisis and desire for control. Although I’ve been a believer for more than two decades, I was having a hard time surrendering to God and bowing down to His will for my life and to His timing in this unexpected pregnancy.
Why does surrender scare us? Why is it difficult to say “I am Yours, Lord. Anything You want to do in me and with me, I am willing”? Is it because it involves laying down our desires, our conveniences, or the way we want our life to be? The first words that came out of my mouth that morning were, “My life will not be the same!” I wanted my life to be a certain way and the change on the horizon threatened that desire.
John 12:24 says “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
We struggle to lay down our desires or our need for control but the life that we so desperately want is on the other side of surrender. Only when we stop resisting and come to the point of complete trust and yielding to what the Spirit of God is doing in our lives we will see fruit. Satan wants us to believe the ancient lie - that surrendering to God means somehow relinquishing our joy. We get deceived into thinking that once our hands are open and empty, God is not big enough or good enough or capable enough to fill them up again. There is nothing in our hands God won’t replace with more of himself.
We will give God anything when we believe He is everything.
True surrender is not a response to defeat, It’s a response to love. Jesus came down from Heaven to die for our sins. He gave His all for us. He is worthy of our surrender.
The Chinese symbol for crisis combines the words for danger and opportunity. When we feel like we are in a personal tornado it provides us with a perfect opportunity to experience the nearness and goodness of the Lord but there is also a danger to becoming bitter and to develop resentment in our hearts. How we respond when our expectation and the experience of our reality does not match determines how much fruit we bear.
Although the dictionary defines surrender as synonymous to defeat, we know that God is not calling us to a defeated life. A surrendered life is neither a “hiding in defeat” kind of life or a silent, sedentary life. In fact, a surrendered life is an active, serving life. As God started working in my heart throughout the pregnancy I continued to host, serve in our small group, be involved in evangelistic outreach, and work toward the church plant that God has called my husband and I to in the city of Austin. And as I write this, I am sitting next to a peacefully sleeping, beautiful one month old baby that He has blessed us with and marvel at how great His faithfulness is. Since the birth of our daughter, my heart has been brimming with gratitude to the Lord, overflowing with love for this child and filling up with joyful anticipation for all the beautiful memories we have in the future. Surrender might feel difficult at the moment but when we yield to the will of the Father, He reveals His greatness and His goodness in our lives. It leads to true fulfillment, peace, and life. I am reminded of a sentence in an old 1876 Hymn, “Like a River Glorious.” It goes, “They who trust Him wholly, find Him wholly true.”
And that my friend, is my testimony.