I Surrender All

Do you ever find a song running through your head and you aren’t even sure where it came from? Sometimes it’s obvious—a tune that my children insist on listening to on repeat, dare I say the name Baby Shark?—but other times, a melody or phrase from a song just appears in my mind. Perhaps a message from God?

The past few days I’ve found myself humming I surrender All. The lyric, “I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee my Lord and Savior, I surrender all.” continues to pulse through my thoughts. The word surrender is commonly used in a negative light. In war, surrendering is admitting defeat. In law enforcement, the accused surrenders to police custody. Even as I look up the definition of surrender I find these words: “cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.” (google search). By this definition, surrendering to God suggests that the Trinity and humans are enemies or opponents. Initially this makes me uncomfortable. I wonder if the song writer got it wrong? Can you surrender to someone who you are not at odds with? Maybe. Or maybe the song writer got it right.

After all, there is a tension between the Divine and the mortal. Throughout the Bible it’s shown that we are not peaceful servants. We are disobedient, untrusting, and desiring control. We make choices and cut corners hoping God won’t notice as we eat from the forbidden tree, murder our brother, forget and neglect to go to church, send an innocent man to battle just to sleep with his wife. Humanity is at odds with the directives of God. Hence the need for Jesus. Humans, through sinful desires and actions, have declared war against God—whether realizing it or not. And in war, bloodshed often occurs. But what is unique to this war is that, though God could easily win with flood and fire and famine, he chooses to offer an unlikely solution—both sides triumphant through the bloodshed of himself. He falls on his sword to reconcile human and Divine.

Yet, this bloodshed is no surrender. Instead, it’s a sign of protection. Protection for the ones who lean towards willful and obstinate—unworthy opponents. With the blood of Jesus we are not only forced to admit our own human desires to be disobedient and at odds with God’s commands, but we are also able to see that even though our DNA tempts us to reject the Divine as our ruler, God is not asking us to surrender to imprisonment but to grace.

In our surrender, we are putting down our defiant desires to be at odds with God. We are accepting God’s way as truth.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
 Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:6-9

What do you think surrendering to God looks like?