Surrender Season Series: Pt 1 Welcoming Surrender

By Nicole Joseph-Chin – Author of Ready To Surrender – “A pocket book of peace, power and purpose”
As a new year emerges, we become flooded with plans, thoughts, dreams and hopes for changing things in our lives. We use the new year as a mile marker for many resolutions, and in turn, we make our best efforts to achieve these goals.

Over the Christmas season, we welcomed loved ones, as we in turn were welcomed into some of our celebrations and made time for welcoming gratitude and opportunities to be part of our communities.

But have we ever stopped to consider welcoming surrender?

Surrender by the dictionary definition speaks of stopping the resistance and submitting to authority. In our faith and biblical definitions, it is the act of giving up one’s will to God and choosing to live in accordance.

In a Season of Surrender, we are oftentimes invited to make changes that will incorporate the two definitions that are associated with authority, in the instance of faith-focused alignment – giving up our will and allowing God to do the work.

In the many facets of our lives, and in creating a secure future for ourselves and our loved ones, sometimes that ‘will’ feels like a big chance and a bit too much, especially if we are basing our desires on time.

Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” sometimes becomes the least of our choices, as we apply our determination and learned skill of visioning in the journey towards our goals.

While we incorporate logic into our heavily driven goals and dreams, we may hesitate to ask what God truly wants for us.

It might be a dream for a new or improved work situation, a plan for moving or acquiring a new home, a long-awaited dream to travel or explore uncharted corridors or a tough personal decision.

Usually, these plans are embedded in desire and while we might have a plan for the execution of these goals, we are often left in a state of anxiety, which can then lead to many other challenges in our lives.

The unknown is one of those things that we hesitate to reflect on during our planning.

But what if our plans were otherwise hinged on another level of our faith and faithfulness over which we have absolutely no control? What if we still needed a formula to ensure that disappointment and delay did not overcome us?

Then we would have to shift our plans, cancel our dreams, and possibly press the restart button or we could abandon all dreams to the love of our creator and place them onto a new pathway of Surrender – based on the unknown, but this time, with trust, faith, hope and a willingness to believe in the best outcomes – the will of God.

Welcoming surrender is a bigger form of sacrifice, and it can be the hardest task we can ever consider.

As we welcome surrender in our new year, let us reflect on the ways we can still attain our dreams, giving our entire will to God.

Are you Ready To Surrender?

Continue to folow the series at catholicnewstt.com