Surrender is NOT the same as giving up

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done..." Matthew 6:10

The whole idea of surrender is one that I've wrestled with for years.  That wrestling came to a head when our daughter started Taekwondo and began working toward her Black-belt.  I've always seen my place and role as a peace-maker, mediator.  I've never envisioned myself as a fighter, so when our whole family enrolled in TKD to support her and get exercise, I was actually a bit at odds with myself.  I wanted her to be strong and know how to defend herself, but the martial arts seemed odd and uncomfortable to me.  How could I ever strike out at another when my whole life had been one of surrender?

It was in those years of study that I learned much about what it meant for me to surrender to God's will, and what it meant to be active in working towards something that was good and important.  Taekwondo is to be used for defense, and the 'kata' or forms of TKD teach you how to move and defend.  It is a very active and powerful sport, yet serene and graceful.  Those years of training helped me to discover an inner resolve and strength within me that I didn't knew existed.  It was the strength that seemed to echo Martin Luther's "Here I stand. I can do no other."  -- that place where we know what we are called to do and we summon the inner strength to do it. 

So what does all this have to do with God's will and surrender?  In my heart and mind it had everything to do with surrender to God.  For so long, I had seen surrendering to God's will as a passive, last-resort concession where I had to give in.  I saw it as the place where I was drained of all energy, I had lost the fight and there was nothing else to do.  After Taekwondo, another image of faithfulness in surrendering to God's will began to take shape:  it was the image of the strong, intent one, standing balanced and calm waiting for the next direction...the next action to take place so the appropriate response could be made.  Surrender to God was no longer a 'giving up', but it began to make sense as an action-- a way to be prepared to move.
Surrender to God now seems an ultimate place of readiness, strength and grace-fullness.

I think this idea of surrender as a place of strength is one that I needed to be reminded of (again and again) on this journey of chronic illness.  So many of us, myself included, come to a place in this journey where all other avenues seem to be exhausted-- and so are we.  Surrendering to God's will seems to be understood as a kind of throwing in the towel--a kind of giving up.  However, if we are to be faithful to our calling as Children of God, this journey calls upon us to dig deeper, reach farther within, and gently yet firmly hold onto the strength that God gives us for each day. 

Surrender in its most faithful sense in this journey is something like this, I think:  With whatever strength and health we have within us today--at this very moment-- we set our feet, our mind and our heart in a place where we are able to receive God's leading touch, and we are ready to respond to this world in a way that we are uniquely gifted to do.  This is not a time for giving up and shutting down (although that has been my struggle and even choice on more days than I want to admit). This Chronic illness journey is a place for the strength, the resolve, the balance and attention to be focused upon where God would lead our next move.  This place, my friends, is more challenging than any marital arts, any physical discipline, any training around-- as most of us are in territory that is unfamiliar to most, and it could claim us if we let it. 

Surrendering to God's will means we are willing to be tenacious in following God, even when it doesn't make sense to others--even when it looks like failure or weakness.  The paradox of surrendering to God's will is that I believe it calls out the most powerful parts of us and draws us to act. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane shows ultimate tenacity as he fights his own desire to stop the journey and not follow through. As Jesus prays "Father, not my will but yours be done"  we see the ultimate 'fighter'-- and the ultimate acts of courage and power. 

May the Lord train us to be strong in our surrender.

Powerful, wise God, help us this day to understand what it means to follow you and to do your will as we walk this chronic illness journey. So many voices within and without would have us give up, roll-over and become passive.  Show us what surrendering to your will means, and give us the strength and courage to follow wherever you are leading.  Amen.