How does surrender address the fundamental reality of ‘lack of power, that was our dilemma’ (BB p.45) ?
What is the dynamic between the surrender of offering myself or abandoning myself and finding who I really am … my true self … distinguishing the true from the false ?
Is it possible that to “thine own self be true” (AA medallion) begins with surrendering or abandoning who I think I am that has perhaps produced this bondage of self … this sense of conscious separation and isolation from life, from good, from God?
The Third Step Prayer suggests that we can be “relieved of the bondage of self” if we first offer or perhaps surrender ourselves to God (BB p.63)
In ‘How It Works’ we read each morning “half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.”
In the Twelve & Twelve at the end of Step 6 (12&12 p.68/69) we’re see “we shall have to come to grips with some of our worst character defects and take action toward their removal as quickly as we can. The moment we say, “No, never!” our minds close against the grace of God. Delay is dangerous, and rebellion may be fatal. This is the exact point at which we abandon limited objectives, and move toward God’s will for us.”
In a ‘Vision For You’, we’re told “in finding God he had found himself” (BB p.158).
And finally on the last page of the Big Book text (BB p.164), we hear “Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit”.
So with these thoughts in mind, let’s consider the relationship between surrender, love and spirituality suggested in the article below as we consider what it means to practice surrender.
You may also find the poem ‘The Guest House’ useful as you consider this practice of surrender outlined below. I also find a related article from Ray A about surrender and humility helpful as well as Ray’s article about what are the principles we’re supposed to practice – Bruce M.
Surrender is as much a part of genuine love as it is a part of authentic spirituality. Love invites abandon and intimacy. Love speaks to the depths of our soul, where we yearn for release from our isolation and long for the belonging that will assure us we are at last home. Love speaks the language of the soul as it awakens our hunger for relationship and connection.
…Union with God is not something we achieve. It is not the summit of a spiritual mountain we are trying to ascend. It is a gift of Grace. We do, however, have an important role to play in accessing this grace. And that is the place of spiritual practices. They are the way in which we offer our consent to Grace.
Surrender is not the only means by which we access the grace of transformation, but it is the most important. But surrender is not something that we only practice when we approach God with open hands and hearts in faith. It is something that we need to make a moment-by-moment part of how we live our life.
Fortunately, life brings us a steady flow of opportunities to practice surrender. Events that we would never choose enter our life quite regularly. These may be as small as interruptions to our plans for the day or as large as crises that forever change our life. Regardless of their magnitude, they serve as reminders that despite our efforts and desire, we are not in control.
Only when we are willing to recognize that we do not control life can we truly offer our consent to the inflow of Grace. Willingly opening our hands and releasing things we normally cling to is the most important way we can offer that consent. Only when we truly welcome the unwanted can we be free of our natural upsetting reactions to it that cage our spirits, darken our souls and damage our bodies.
But let me make this practical. Consider the following suggestions if you are ready to practice surrender:
- Watch for the next instinctively unwelcome event that enters your life. Notice your initial response to it. Pay attention to the emotions that quickly arise—and the way you experience these in your body. Don’t try to change anything. Just stay with those feelings and reactions until they are clearly in your focus. Name them. And then welcome them. Speak this welcome even if you do not feel the hospitality that the words imply. Imagine yourself as the host at the door of your self and accept these visitors into your self. And then gently release them.
- Surrender also has a very important role to play in the resolution of loss. Identify something or someone you have lost in recent years and which you still miss. It may be a friend, a job, your health, your sense of hopefulness and optimism, your sense of virility and personal power, your feeling of being young, your beauty, the esteem of someone important to you, your own self respect or any of a large number of other things. While there is nothing that you can do to turn back the clock and recover what is no longer yours, you can release it. Letting go of something that is gone does not mean that you would not welcome it back. It simply means that you choose to let go of your attachment to it. Doing so does no dishonor to the object of your attachment. You may want to thank God for the person or the attachment. But then release it. Surrender is a way of saying, “I acknowledge that I do not need this for my happiness and fulfillment.” It is a way of consenting to the flow of life and the inflow of Grace that comes through it.
As these suggestions show, surrender is not simply something to be limited to the religious dimension of our lives. When it characterizes the overall posture of our whole life, our whole life becomes a prayer of consent to Grace. Practice surrender as a way of gently releasing whatever it is that you are attached to other than God. Make this a part of every day, every hour, every minute. Make it your offering of consent to God to let life and love flow into and through you.