The Life of Surrender
The Life of Surrender¹
I would like to speak to you today about “the life of surrender.”
What does the life of surrender mean?
The life of surrender means that a person hands over his life to God and trusts that God is able to manage this life according to His good and blessed will.
This matter therefore requires trust in God, so that a person may surrender his life to God. It is astonishing that people may trust themselves, and may trust other people, yet they hesitate greatly to trust God.
The life of surrender needs trust in God, and it is built on one of two things: either natural faith in our Lord, that He is capable of everything and that He is the Maker of good things and the Lover of mankind, or experience with God from long ago.
The life of surrender also enters into another meaning, which is that a person submits to the work of God within him: he submits to the work of the Holy Spirit in him, and to the work of grace in him; he submits to the good will of God.
The sinful person does not submit to the Holy Spirit nor to the work of grace. The sinful person is one who is stubborn toward grace, resisting and hindering the work of the Holy Spirit.
God desires that all be saved, but the sinful person does not submit to this divine will. The sinful person places his lusts in the place of God’s grace, and places his desires in the path of the work of the Holy Spirit.
The sinful person does not cooperate with the Holy Spirit nor become a partner with the Holy Spirit. He stands alone to act according to his own will, and therefore sin is considered a kind of stubbornness—a kind of hardness of opinion and resistance—and it does not agree with the life of surrender.
The person who walks in the life of surrender surrenders completely. He surrenders his mind, his heart, and his senses to God. He surrenders his desires, emotions, and feelings to God. He surrenders everything to God and does not try to interfere in God’s work within him.
The person who enters the life of surrender says: “What do You want me to do, O Lord?” The life of surrender needs humility of heart, and that a person not be proud of his mind, his intelligence, or his plans. The humble can reach God because they always ask the Lord.
The prophet David was of this kind. Many times he would ask God before advancing to any action, and as God would say, so he would do.
God has always chosen people who live the life of surrender—those who say: “Let Your will be done, not my will,” and as the Lord says, so we do.
Abraham, the father of the fathers, lived the life of surrender. “Take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him to Me as a burnt offering.” Abraham submitted, rose very early in the morning, and took the wood and the knife. It is the life of surrender that does not know much discussion or argument, and does not take God’s commands for examination, but simply surrenders.
Those who walk in the life of surrender need simplicity of heart—a simple heart far from human wisdom that examines too much, that wants to know every secret, and that ate with Adam from the tree of knowledge; it wants to know everything.
Those who examine and scrutinize excessively, and who take God’s commands with debate and argument, do not easily reach the life of surrender. Their life is debate and argument, and they are called rational people.
The life of surrender needs faith and belief; it needs an open heart, not a rebellious mind. As for miracles, for example, without surrender and simplicity it would not have been possible for a person to believe in a miracle such as what happened in the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Egypt. The simple believed, while the complicated asked many questions and were unable to walk in the life of surrender.
The life of surrender needs simplicity of heart. One of the philosophers who deviated into atheism, and whom doubts and thoughts exhausted, once passed by a simple believing farmer who was praying, and said to him: “I am ready to give up all my philosophy in exchange for obtaining your simplicity, which I cannot reach!” It is possible to reach philosophy and to fill the mind with information, but reaching simplicity of heart is not easy for him, and its path is not easy.
Simplicity is deeper than philosophy, and it is more precious and more valuable than all the sciences of the world. Simplicity is a treasure, and not every person can obtain it.
The simple person lives happily, and is able to believe in God, trust Him and His dealings, and surrender to the divine will. He is a person who does not complicate matters. The life of surrender needs simplicity, trust in God, faith in Him, and humility of heart.
I have said that God chose people who are able to live the life of surrender—people who do not argue much and do not resist much, people whose hearts can become a suitable vessel for the work of grace within them. The examples of this are many, whether in the Holy Bible or in the lives of the saints. I gave you the example of Abraham, to whom God said: “Take your son and offer him as a burnt offering.” Another example in Abraham’s life is when God said to him: “Go out from your land, from your kindred, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Abraham left his family. We did not hear of any argument at all between Abraham and God, whether in leaving his homeland, in offering his son, or in the promise of offspring which he received when he had reached great old age. It is always surrender.
Likewise is surrender when the Virgin Lady said to the angel: “Let it be to me according to your word.”
This surrender was also seen in every person whom God entrusted with a message or a miracle. Moses the prophet, for example, in his wondrous miracles, surrendered his mind to God. Likewise all those who wandered in mountains, deserts, and caves of the earth, surrendered their lives to God; those who drank deadly poison, the three youths who entered the furnace of fire, and Daniel in the lions’ den.
All of this is a life of surrender—no discussion of the commandment; it is enough for a person to surrender his will.
Those whom God called, and they went and lived following Him—among the most beautiful examples is Matthew the Apostle. The Lord Christ commanded him to leave the tax office and said to him: “Follow Me.” He left it and followed Him without discussion. He did not say: What shall I do? What are the limits of responsibility?
It is the life of surrender to the hand of God. There is trust that makes him walk behind Him. There is no need for questioning: Where will I follow Him? How? In what way? It is enough to believe in Him.
You need only to believe that you are walking with God.
That person who falls into a problem and thinks a lot about how to get out of it becomes tired from thinking and preparation. But the other person who lives in the life of surrender trusts that God will work in the problem and will find a solution for it. The situation here is different, for those who live in the life of surrender have hearts that trust in God.
The same happened to the Apostle Peter—surrender and lack of surrender. When the Lord Christ was walking on the water, Peter said: “Let me walk with You.” Thus he surrendered his life and walked with Him. Here his faith was working, not his mind, and this is good. But when he began to think, he sank. Then the Lord said to him: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Our life with God is like this. We can walk with Him over the waves and ascend with Him above the clouds. But when we begin to think and ask: How do we walk on the water?—we have lost simplicity, and the mind and philosophy begin to work. In this case we have entered into debate and rational inquiries that are of no benefit.
The same happens in miracles. One person prays with faith and is healed, and another prays without faith and remains as he is. It is a matter of surrender—one believed and the other did not believe.
The life of surrender is beautiful; a person does not feel any fatigue in it. One virtue is enough for him as a fruit of faith—obedience. From faith comes obedience, and from doubt comes disobedience. The person who trusts and believes surrenders his will and his life, and thus obeys. But the one who does not reach the life of surrender, when he receives a command, does not obey it. He begins to discuss, examine, and analyze it, and acts in a way that takes him outside obedience.
The one who obeys relies on another and finds rest, but the one who relies on himself becomes tired because he bears the responsibility of his work.
The life of surrender, O brethren, contains joy, satisfaction, and reassurance.
The person who surrenders his life to God feels joy because God leads his life: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” He feels God’s care. Surrender has brought him joy.
But the person who walks according to his own will and does not live the life of surrender is afflicted by doubt. He asks himself: Did I walk in the right path or did I err? Did I act correctly or uselessly? Thus he becomes tired from doubt because he did not surrender. Therefore, those who do not walk in the life of surrender live in disturbance, anxiety, and lack of confidence in their actions. They live in fatigue and in doubt about themselves and about the results of their deeds, unlike those who live the life of surrender. They are happy, leaving their lives in the hand of God.
The one who lives in the life of surrender lives his day and does not worry about tomorrow. He does not care about tomorrow, because tomorrow has a God who manages it and a God who preserves it.
The one who does not live the life of surrender thinks a lot and imagines many troubles in the future, which imagination and fear portray for him. He imagines armies of troubles and afflictions chasing him, because he has not yet surrendered himself to God.
I want you, O brethren, to surrender your lives to God. I want you to trust God so that you may surrender your life to Him. I want you to know God so that you may trust Him. I want you to meet God so that you may know Him, trust Him, love Him, surrender your life to Him, find reassurance in His care, and live in peace.
The first step is that a person meets God; after that he comes to know God, understands Him, and experiences Him. Then he loves Him, trusts Him, surrenders his life to Him, and lives in reassurance as a result of surrender.
Have you taken the first step?
Have you met God, and have you known Him?
And when did you meet Him, and how did you know Him?
These are important questions that you must know. How do you meet God?
Sometimes we meet God in the science of theology, in the Creed, and in baptism, and sometimes intellectually—but all of these are theoretical encounters.
The question is: Have you met God in a practical encounter? Have you seen Him in your life and spoken with Him?
Another question: Who is God for us? Is God something you inherited from your parents, like a believing father who begot a believing son? Is God for you the one found in books, whom you learned about in schools, in church, and in Sunday School? Who is God to you?
How did you meet God? Many have met God, lived with Him, experienced Him, tested Him, and tasted Him.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good,” as John the Evangelist speaks: “That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” He lived with Him, tasted Him, and beheld Him. We lack this encounter in our lives—to meet Him, experience Him, and touch Him—so that God becomes for us a practical presence in our lives, not an intellectual existence or a theoretical concept.
¹ An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani newspaper on 25-3-1973.
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