The Struggle to Surrender

The times when we’re most desperate and call out for God can be the most nerve-wracking moments in our lives. We’re meant to surrender. Yet, it is impossible to control Him. And the reality is, we don’t always get what we ask for. 

Look at what happened to Jesus. He asked for the cup to be removed from Him. This is the perfect Son of Man. The one who lived the life that all of us were meant to live. The one who sought to please the Father. The one who was one with the Father. The one in whom the Father was well-pleased. 

Yet, He suffered the most horrific death. It wasn’t just dying. There was torture – mental and physical. I can’t even imagine it. He could have got out of it. But He faced it. It’s an obedience that I don’t understand. 

It’s true when I say I will never understand it. I think of the times when I cry out to God. One that stands out was when we were told mummy only had six hours to live. You can imagine my prayers. The other time I fervently prayed was as my dad’s ninetieth birthday was coming up. I had planned his party and I myself had a milestone birthday coming up in the following month. For some reason, I remembered that my grandpa had passed away three days short of his ninetieth birthday. 

My mum lived longer than the six-hour forecast. Not by much. My dad had a wonderful party, celebrated me, and then left. To me, these haven’t been prayers answered. I have to make it clear that I had absolutely no choice in these events. I cannot tell you how I surrendered. I wish I could, but I do not have this obedience. I want control. 

Things haven’t always been easy since losing my dad. The heaviness I feel in the knowledge that my immediate family is gone leaves me feeling empty. There are times when the pangs I feel are so real, I can feel an ache. 

The reality is that life is also difficult for most people around me. I don’t expect these friends to be looking out for me. They’ve got to deal with whatever’s going on for them. There are some relationships that I’m reevaluating. It’s impossible to go through such feelings and not ponder on the value and strength of some relationships. I’m sensitive to the ones who’re just way too busy to make space for me, just as I am keenly aware of the ones who never ask – only dump. I’m meant to lean on God. 

But God as we know it, cannot be controlled. God as I’ve experienced shows up when He does and stays silent when He wills. It’s a genuine struggle trying to keep my eyes on Him at points. And I remember Jesus headed towards the cross. How did He keep His eyes on God all that time? It feels impossible. 

The tension I feel is that I know God is good. I believe it. It’s a non-negotiable truth. As I grew up, I felt the triumph of His rescue every single time, when it came to His people. When Abraham failed to trust, God was still faithful. When Moses grew desperate, God was faithful. When Joshua looked upon the promised land, God was faithful – though the reminder was that He wasn’t there for Joshua. He was there for His plan. 

There are so many stories. The walls of Jericho falling down is a big one. David slaying Goliath is a personal favourite. ‘I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts.’ That’s what David said as he looked upon that terrible giant. 

The lepers, the crippled, the deaf and the blind who were healed by Jesus are success stories, aren’t they not? Jairus’ daughter is an incredible one. The healing of the centurion’s servant is another. The feeding of the multitudes and another favourite of mine is the woman with the blood issue. 

So many success stories, to use the language of victory today. Yet there are also instances when prayers were just unanswered. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Where does that leave the likes of you and me? 

I don’t really know. I don’t fully understand how God shows up in the world. It’s outside my control. I struggle with surrender. It’s so difficult when you don’t know what’s going to happen in a situation you’ve been praying about. 

Is this my fear speaking?

There’s another story in the Bible that I have always been fascinated with. And that’s the story of Jacob, who God later names Israel. Jacob is his father’s favourite and in a well-known story, cheats his brother, Esau, from his birthright. It results in a crazy series of events where he flees to an uncle of his, gets cheated, and he really wants out. God tells him to go home to his family and promised to be with him (Genesis 31:3). 

It’s at the point of returning home that fear sets in. He remembers Esau. Wouldn’t Esau be out to get him? Jacob goes into overdrive. I think most of us can relate to this. He makes all sorts of plans, including breaking up his group into two companies to soften his approach. 

Jacob also does one other thing. He prays. This is Jacob’s prayer: O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, LORD, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives and I will make you prosper, I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make your prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’ 

The idea of fixing things or taking next steps to avert disaster isn’t novel. It’s not rocket science to step out of the way of something that could hurt you or to fix a problem. In many senses, these steps are lauded in the world. We applaud people for being proactive. 

I think this is the tension for believers in the world that we live in. The idea of fixing, planning, averting, and whatnots, are all considered good but they seem to go against the idea of surrender. 

So, we shouldn’t be too surprised to see that after saying that prayer, Jacob goes to work on how to advance towards his brother. 

Some writers explain that when Jacob did what he did to try and avert danger, he had forgotten the promise that God had made him. He started to rely on his own abilities to get himself out of danger. 

The visit by the Man who wrestles with Jacob is so very interesting at this juncture. It is not Jacob wrestling with the Man. It is the Man wrestling with Jacob. And it’s not that the Man really couldn’t overpower him, as we later see how he so easily puts Jacob’s hip out of joint. It is that the Man wanted Jacob to wrestle. 

We understand that this Man was God. We are told that Jacob did not die although he had seen God, a grace that he was granted. One of the explanations that has been put forward about why the Man wrestled with Jacob is that God wanted Jacob to give up his reliance on self. Jacob’s determination was to get what he wanted and that’s probably the resistance that he put up. Makes me think how often we cling to what we want before God. 

But just like that, at a touch, the Man shows Jacob that he can’t win. Jacob knows he is defeated. At this point, he brings his desperation before the Man. ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’ (Genesis 32: 26) 

Surrender. 

In light of this story, it feels like surrender could do with a bit of reframing. Maybe surrender does require some sort of step. Instead of following behind everyone else, which is what his self-reliance taught him to do, Jacob’s surrender should have meant that he led the way back to Esau. It would have shown trust in God’s promise to protect him. 

Our work as believers in today’s world is to figure out how we’re surrendering. Are there a thousand desperate steps that we’re taking in all directions because of the worry or fear that’s dominating our mind? Perhaps it’s worth taking stock that the situations we are in may be driving us to the point of prayer – where we have no other place to take our desperation to. I think in the end, we must all do what Jacob had to do, which is surrender by facing God. 

Now, I don’t know what this means for the outcome of our prayers – but I know that this is not formulaic. It’s not a ‘I prayed for so many hours that God must now answer me’ or ‘God will grant me such and such a thing because I prayed for it.’ 

Rather, I think that the invite to wrestle in prayer, which usually comes through dire situations, is an invite from God to us to receive a blessing. In this sense, I’d encourage each one of us to be like Jacob, even when we’ve lost the match, hold on and say I will not let you go unless you bless me.