What Happens When We Take Our Hands Off Of Our Lives?

I had the privilege of seeing Jen Hatmaker and Nichole Nordeman on tour in Chicago this week.

While the oh-so-vulnerable Hatmaker has a natural way of providing the much-needed medicine of laughter, Nichole surprised me.  Her most recent album makes my hair stand on its ends because of the depth of her lyrics.  But what took me by surprise was her story about when she and her pre-school aged kids got caught unprepared in a thunderstorm with nowhere to go.  Her son, after trying to run from it, eventually just raised up his arms and yelled out, "I SURRENDER".  Relief was found.  Then, they turned Tom Petty's "Free Falling" into a worship song.  I didn't know she could preach - but she just did.

German theologian, Meister Eckhart says this:

"Nothing makes us true men and women but the giving up of our will."  

That is a bold statement.  It is extremely counter-cultural, but I have learned to love it because it has proved itself to me over and over again.

Several months ago, I sought out the wisdom of a therapist to help give me some insight as to how best parent one of my children.  That was my first action of surrender - admitting that I did not know what to do.  The second was just as hard, but equally gratifying.  After hearing about our background, she asked where our points of contention were, and after some thought it came down to my desire for her to have a certain amount of screen time - and no more, and a certain amount of sweets - and no more!  She told me to let go of that.  I looked at her like she was nuts.  After she explained her reasoning, I sat back and said "okay".  Honestly, just the idea of letting this go gave me a sense of peace that I did not expect,  because I was forced to let go of the control freak inside of me - and I liked it!  When I had the opportunity to put it into practice, it actually worked.  There was finally some peace between us.

Here I learned that letting go is the key to peace.

But there's more.  Surrendering is also the key to LIFE:  "Whoever loses their life for me will save it" - Jesus (Luke 9:24).  And well before that, in Jeremiah, we read that if God's people chose to turn themselves over to the King, they would live (Jer 21:8, 38:17).  It is here, in this letting go, this surrender, that we find out what we were made for because we find our True Selves which had been covered up by our own will.  Peace comes because we have given up the fight for our own way - there's no longer a battle between our will and God's will.  It is well in our soul (Horatio Spafford).

There's a reason why there is so much joy during baptism.  They are celebrating the letting go of their life as they are placing it in God's hands.  It is a radically freeing thing to do.  We weren't made to govern all that we attempt to.  Below, are some of my favorite worship songs, which just happen to be about surrender.  If you have time now, great.  If not, circle back later and they will probably speak louder to you than any of my words on the subject will:

Jonathan David & Melissa Helser's "Beautiful Surrender"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zOSRYKFtg
Tenth Avenue North's "Control" (This is where this blog title came from)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFfztu8-bBQ
Big Daddy Weave's "Beautiful Offering"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUrmdjN0qeo

So, what does it look like when a surrendered life is lived out?  Eberhart Arnold helps us here;

"... be overpowered by love... only a heart filled with the superior power of God's love will be able to confront the pain and suffering around it."

Ultimately, we will be able to confront pain and

suffering when we have lost the fight between our will and God's will.  When we have allowed His love to so overpower our soul, He can love others through us.  He can feel the injustices around us that we would have not noticed before.  His eyes can see through us, to the pain of others, and then tenderly touch them there.  When we let the waves of God's love crash over us and allow Him to take us where He wants us to go, we have peace.  We've lost control, but we are finally free (Jenn Johnson/Bethel Music, In Over My Head).



Flikr photo credit: Andrea M(rain storm) , Debbie Gilman(waves)