For most of my life, when something went wrong, I tried to fix it.
When there was a problem, I looked for a solution. When I wanted something, I worked toward it. When circumstances became difficult, I relied upon myself to find a way through them.
In many ways, that served me well. My efforts were responsible for many of my successes, accomplishments, and solutions to problems that life placed in front of me.
But I also learned this very young.
Although I was raised Catholic and given a moral foundation, I didn’t grow up learning to lean heavily upon God when life became difficult. I learned to lean upon myself. Emotional support was not always something I could depend upon at home, so independence became almost instinctive.
You learn to figure things out.
You learn to keep moving.
You learn that if something needs to change, you had better do something about it.
For much of my life, my Catholic faith existed alongside that mentality rather than at the center of it. I believed in God, but I didn’t yet understand what it meant to entrust my life to Him. The relationships and influences around me didn’t particularly lead me toward a deeper dependence upon God either.
Looking back now, I wish I had understood surrender much earlier.
Today, I see my relationship with God very differently. I want His presence. I seek His guidance. I depend upon His forgiveness and mercy. I trust His love in ways I never understood when I was younger.
And strangely enough, the more I surrender to God, the more I realize how much surrender I still have left to learn.
The Problem With Waiting
I know God’s timing is better than mine.
I believe that.
I know He sees things I cannot see. I know that what seems like a delay to me may be protection, preparation, correction, or simply part of a plan I don’t yet understand.
But knowing that doesn’t always make waiting easy.
There is still a part of me that says, Do something.
Fix it.
Make the phone call. Solve the problem. Find another way. Don’t just sit there waiting for something to happen.
Perhaps that’s why surrender can sometimes feel uncomfortable to me. I spent decades believing that responsibility meant action. Now I’m learning that sometimes responsibility also means knowing when not to force an outcome.
There’s an old saying that occasionally comes back into my mind:
“God helps those who help themselves.”
It isn’t Scripture, although I think many of us grew up hearing it often enough that it almost feels like it is.
There is some truth hidden inside the sentiment…we aren’t called to laziness. Scripture certainly doesn’t teach us to neglect our responsibilities and expect God to perform them for us. St. Paul writes, “If anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
Faith doesn’t relieve us of responsibility.
But responsibility and control are not the same thing.
That is the distinction I am still learning.
Maybe Surrender Isn’t Doing Nothing
I’ve sometimes imagined surrender as though God were asking me to sit completely still and wait for Him to arrange everything.
I’m beginning to think that’s the wrong way to understand it.
Surrender doesn’t necessarily mean inactivity.
It means I can do what is reasonably mine to do without believing that everything ultimately depends upon me.
I can work.
I can plan.
I can make responsible decisions.
I can knock on doors.
I can ask God for direction and then take the next prudent step.
But eventually I reach a point where I’ve done what I can do.
That’s where surrender becomes difficult.
Because surrender means saying:
“Lord, I have done what I believe You are asking of me. What happens next belongs to You.”
That is very different from giving up.
It’s also very different from trying to control everything.
Proverbs tells us:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely; in all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths.”
— Proverbs 3:5–6
I don’t think God is asking me to stop using the abilities He gave me. Perhaps He is teaching me to stop treating those abilities as though they were my only source of security.
That is a much harder lesson.
Have I Really Surrendered?
There are moments when my impatience makes me question myself.
If I really trusted God, wouldn’t I be more peaceful?
If I had truly surrendered, why do I still feel compelled to fix things?
Why do I become impatient when His answer doesn’t arrive according to my timetable?
But perhaps surrender isn’t a single moment in which our desire for control permanently disappears.
Perhaps it is something we repeatedly choose.
Jesus Himself taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)
Daily.
Not enough bread to eliminate every uncertainty for the next twenty years.
Enough for today.
Maybe surrender works similarly.
I may belong to God completely while still having parts of myself that need to learn what belonging to Him actually requires.
My impatience doesn’t necessarily mean that I have no faith. But it does reveal an area where my faith still needs to grow.
And maybe recognizing that is itself part of the growth.
Learning to Leave the Outcome With God
At this stage of my life, I don’t want less dependence upon God.
I want more.
I wish I had understood that decades ago.
I wish I had prayed more when I was younger. I wish I had trusted Him with decisions instead of approaching every problem as though its resolution depended entirely upon me.
But regret can become another attempt to control something I cannot change.
I cannot surrender yesterday.
I can surrender today.
So perhaps my prayer now is a simple one:
Lord, show me what is mine to do, give me the courage to do it, and give me the humility to leave the rest with You.
I will probably still become impatient.
I will probably still occasionally try to solve tomorrow’s problems today.
And there will probably be moments when God seems frustratingly quiet while every instinct inside me says, Do something.
But maybe that is precisely where He is teaching me something I couldn’t learn when everything depended upon my own effort:
I can participate without controlling.
I can work without believing everything depends upon my work.
I can wait without becoming passive.
And I can surrender without giving up.
I’m still learning the difference.
Perhaps I always will.
