Surrender Series: The Complexity of Surrender

By Nicole Joseph-Chin 

Had anyone ever told me how complex surrender was, I might have been highly doubtful and decided it was too easy.

Only because the idea of surrendering seems to be almost as standard as taking a moment to let it all go and let God. Once applied to the appropriate context, it should serve the purpose of helping us grow and everything should fall right into place.

Au contraire. Only as the journey of surrendering became one of my main activities along a personal path of self-care, did I realise surrender could easily be described as hard at the start and repetitive in nature –a series of restarts depending on the situation and the need.

When surrender showed me that sometimes, just when we thought we had surrendered in its simplest form in the situation faced at the time, that single act of surrender was only pointing us to the starting block. This journey of surrender was not only an unfinished one but was also a relay with the Lord guiding us and holding out His hands, waiting for us to yield, trust and watch the outcomes.

A surrender experience can start over at a critical time or perhaps just when we thought that we had in fact arrived at that place.

In Philippians 2:5-8, we can consider the reference of repeatedly surrendering, simply by the fact that in our daily lives, we might be called to be willing to submit our will consistently and constantly to God’s.

And for many of us, and especially any of us working on strengthening our leadership and walk with Christ, we might have to tie a string to our fingers to remember that it is okay to be in constant and consistent submission – unashamedly.

I recently recognised that sometimes what I might have thought was deep surrender was the start of a process. I had to wait for God to reveal that it was in fact, at that place that He wanted me as His servant.

This might be an opportunity for reflection and especially to ask ourselves–isn’t surrender truly complex?

It might also be an opportunity to ask ourselves–are we ready to surrender? And if so, how would our surrender journey reflect that patience as servants waiting on the Lord?

Nicole Joseph-Chin is the author of Ready to Surrender – “A pocketbook of peace, power and purpose”