COMPLETE SURRENDER

(Lenten Season, 2005)



In my previous articles, I kept on throwing concepts such as “Letting Go and Letting God, “Acceptance and Sacrifice” “Complete Surrender.” These are big and vague words which I have learned a hundred times already but sadly, I still have to relearn especially when I am going through a difficult time.

I want to deal with these concepts right now, so that I may be able to really own and possess them in my life especially during the times when I am tempted to do things my way. Another reason is that you, who may be searching for a different way to live your life would be inspired to reflect on those concepts, and by the grace of God, would embrace them forever.

I am efficacious, sometimes to the point of being manipulative already. Efficacy back in my Alma Mater means believing in oneself that if there is a problem or a conflict, I can act on it or I can do something to solve it, or to put an end to the conflict. Whoever coined the phrase “Kung hindi ako, sino? Kund hindi ngayon kelan pa?” was my idol. That phrase gave me so much energy to confront a person, to air my concerns, to write about issues uncompromisingly, to fight for what I think is right, to rally, to go to the street, to be boldly brave!

For a time, or maybe when I was still within the comforts of my so-called “radical and democratic” Alma Mater, that approach was effective. But when I went out to the real world, I was so shocked that for four years I was made to believe that I was so strong when I was not. I was wounded everytime I would be in control of things. Wounds in the past that were brought by my being so brave were shame, rejection, disapproval, being the talk of the town or the center of the gossip, name it, I experienced it all.

What brought the transformation? Rather the conversion? I became tired. Tired of crying not of the pain but of defeat, tired of fighting, tired of struggling and reasoning with myself and with my God that “I know I am right, how can this happen?”

That is when I learned that sometimes I just have to accept things the way it is. Instead of fighting and insisting on making my voice and my views heard, all I really need to do is just shut up and pray about it. Pray that God knows exactly what He is doing when He allowed those trials to occur, and that in due time, the reason for the pain and the heartaches will be clearly shown to me. Is it not that sometimes we tend to ask God, WHY? I bet you, He would not answer right away. The distance between the struggle and the realization of the lesson or reason why we went through the pain is never determinable. It all depends on whether we faced the problem as how a Christian should, or if we resorted to several defense mechanism just to avoid getting hurt.

If in the face of adversity, the first thing that you will do is pray and offer everything to God and believe in your heart that He is actually doing something about the problem already including showing you what should be done or what path you should choose, then you are on the right track. But, if in the face of hardship you would start mentally enumerating in your mind that I should do this and that, I should avoid this or that, to complain or to keep quiet, to kill or not to kill, to forget or not to forget, to give in or not. It is just too tedious, too rigid, too sure to fail. STOP! Just do yourself a favor, quit being in charge and let God do the work!

So whenever you lose a job or you feel you are not happy with your job, whenever you feel betrayed or abandoned by someone so important to you, whenever you felt you did everything in the name of love but your efforts went to waste, whenever you are not heard or understood, whenever you are in a difficult relationship, or in a wrong relationship, or in the verge of ending a relationship, whenever you face family conflict, you had a fight with your parents, brothers, sisters, children, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, bosses, friends, when you don’t have money, or you don’t have enough money and you are not expecting anything in the next few days to come, whenever you can’t seem to say things right or do things right, whenever you feel you did the right thing yet you were not appreciated, worse you were ridiculed, put down, sued, brought to court, just LET GO and LET GOD!

Offer everything to God in prayer, cry it out to God, complain to Him, whine, shout to Him, reason with Him, challenge Him, question Him, pour out all your thoughts (even if they are bad). You could even go to a very silent place like in the middle of the sea or on top of the mountain, then shout it out! But the important thing is to STICK WITH HIM. Nothing can ever go wrong with Him, I assure you.

To reiterate the passage in the Bible which I am trying to embrace in my life now: “We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him.”

Even if in the darkest time, even in my loneliness and my failure, I would still choose to trust God that He intends to use that painful situation into something good. Sometimes, I would be tempted to manipulate the situation to work in my favor, but I had a first hand experience that everytime I would insist on following the dictates of my heart and mind, even when I can hear God’s soft whisper that I should not act haphazardly, I would experience pain after pain after pain brought about by my being manipulative. Then I will just find myself and my God saying: “Tsk, tsk, tsk, I told you.”

I am not saying that right now, I am living a near perfect life. I don’t even know why but it appears now that a lot of trials are now coming my way day after day. But I already stopped asking God, WHY? I made it a point already to simply accept everything then continually pray that the Lord would lead me every step of the way so that I would know how to deal with it. Every single thing, even the tiniest occurrence in my life I now consider as God’s invitation to let Him take care of me.

To end this, let me leave you with this beautiful paragraph from Nelson Dy’s book Finding Comfort: “We have a wonderful Jesus. He sees our secret shame. So with the same tenderness as He once washed the apostle’s feet, He washes us clean as snow. He feels the depression that threatens to crush us. So He puts the weight of our sorrow on His own shoulders. He aches with compassion for our broken hearts. So He reaches out to bind our wounds. In fact, such healing, as part of the package of the abundant life He offers us, was the reason for His sufferings.”

It is the season of Lent, the season of forgiveness, of conversion, of renewal. It is a good time to reflect on how we are living our life now. Who is in charge? Who is in control? If you are, please go to your silent corner right this very moment and pray. Pray that God will show you, no matter how painful it would be, that complete surrender to Him and to His will is the only way to live.©