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Have you ever been talking with someone about a hard situation and they said to, “give it to God?” Or to, “surrender it to God?” So, then you say a prayer, asking God to take it and then do your best to ignore the emotions and feelings that are still there afterwards but don’t understand why it is still there? I know I have!
This is challenging for a couple of reasons! One, because we don’t know what to do with the pain that situation caused or the fear of being hurt again. And two, because we don’t actually know what it means to surrender or “give it to God”. So, let’s talk about it.
First of all, when it comes to our needs and our fears, this will get easier as we heal. Those needs that didn’t get met and caused us pain and the fears that came from it are usually deep rooted because of things we didn’t get growing up that pushed us into survival mode. For example, let’s say you are stressed or struggling with something financial and you grew up in a home that wasn’t able to provide food or clothing. It is going to be WAY harder for you to just simply say “God you are in control, I am not going to worry!” because your survival instincts are going to be triggered causing you to believe that if you don’t make something happen, you won’t have those needs met again.
Think about the last situation that left you feeling SUPER anxious and feeling like you needed to fix the issue yourself. What was the fear? If you weren’t in control, what would happen? Maybe several things came to your mind. Those are the areas that we need to learn how to trust God with. But how do we do that when our brain tells us that in order to survive, we have to be in control?
You may be someone who follows these blogs and you may have said, “you remind yourself of truth!” And you are HALF right! Lol I know that that is usually the answer, and it still is in some ways. But we also need to reverse those thoughts, and a decision HAS to be made that we will no longer listen to those lies. However, when it comes to deep rooted survival needs that didn’t get met, sometimes it takes more than just reciting truth/ scripture. We also have to UNDERSTAND what it means to surrender to actually be able to surrender. And we also have to encounter an experience that shows our limbic system that what happened in our past isn’t the only outcome. Yes, trusting God or having faith seems like a simple thing we should just be able to do. He is a big God and we believe He CAN do these things. But when you’ve been severely wounded, learning to trust can mean needing to walk in experiences that allow us to lower that guard.
In regards to surrendering, the bibles says in Matthew 16:24-25 that we need to be open to surrender, deny ourself, take up our cross, and follow Him. That was a summary obviously, and as christians, we hear this often but we still get hung up on the surrendering part. We say we do but then we struggle. Why?
Being open to surrendering is a two parter. The first step to surrendering is ALLOW yourself to experience God. And to do this, you have to be open to doing something you’ve never done before.
Going off of that last example, maybe the idea of letting go of the wheel when it comes to your finances may be hard, so shoot for something that is more manageable. Pray out loud, lift your hands to Him while you pray, sing worship music TO HIM instead of just singing it, reading the bible to learn vs. to justify, etc. Step out of a comfort zone and allow yourself to experience those Holy Ghost goosebumps and feel wrapped in His love. Allow yourself to hear what He has to say to you instead of just making up your mind that He won’t respond, so you stop listening. You HAVE to open yourself up to Him and allow yourself to feel His love. And doing that means you allow yourself to be lovable. You allow yourself to believe that you CAN be loved and were created TO BE LOVED. It is IMPOSSIBLE to surrender or be free from this stress and anxiety if we are stuck in a belief system that we are worthless and unloveable. Those are lies from the enemy.
The second step is to understand what surrendering means. To me this idea of surrendering always used to mean that I gave it to God and never thought about it again. But that made me feel like my feelings weren’t being heard. If I was afraid, was I really supposed to just not worry about anything anymore? How do I do that? So, this idea of surrendering was hard for me. Sure I could trust all day long that He would take care of me, at this point I had experienced Him and knew He had my back. But I still seemed to have an expectation that I would have the same outcome as I “always” did.
I then learned that this expectation was a coping mechanism. If I saw the pain coming, or expected it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad. So, I told myself that God would protect me, but JUST IN CASE, I kept that negative expectation in my back pocket. But THEN I learned that surrendering isn’t just making all my worries and feelings disappear. And no longer living in fear doesn’t mean that your feelings get shoved under a rug. You can have feelings and emotions without living in fear. Trusting that God will work out your situations does not mean that you never think about this situation anymore or never experience negative emotions, it just means that fear and anxiety doesn’t get to control how you react to that situation anymore. It doesn’t consume you anymore.
God made us in His image, right? And we tend to think of image as physical. But this is also spiritually and emotionally. God has desires and needs as well. He also wants to be loved, seen, and heard. He knows that that pain you experienced had lasting effects and would never expect you to just “give it to Him and get over it.” He never says you should always be happy and never experience negative emotions. But ALL OVER in the Bible He says, “fear not.” He knows that this world will hurt us, but he wants us to find peace in that pain THROUGH HIM.
Another way to explain what I am saying is to picture this: you are holding fear in one hand and your past pain in your other. He is asking that you let go of the fear so He can hold that hand as you walk into healing and process the pain in the other hand. Your feelings and emotions still matter. The things you care about, matter! What you went through as a child, matters! Surrendering your fear does not discredit any of those things. And often times I think we struggle to surrender or give it to God because we, consciously or subconsciously, think that it does. We pair fear and pain together like they are one thing, which makes it hard to hand over to God. But when we realize they are two separate emotions that need to be dealt with in two different ways, it can make this a littler easier! Giving up fear is a mindset/belief shift we DECIDE to make, while pain is something we heal from through experiencing God and understanding TRUTH.
Basically what I am saying is when you are surrendering that to God and you raise your hands up to Him, you are putting DOWN the fear and lifting UP the pain. And THAT is the difference!
Another word for surrender in the greek/hebrew is commit. And when you think about a commitment, the first step is making a decision. You have to mentally decide to do something. And then once that decision has been made, you make daily decisions to walk into that commitment. The same is true with surrendering. You have to first make the decision to put down fear, to tap into that super power you have with awareness and take back the control over your limbic system! And once you have made that decision, you then walk into healing that wound. Into experiencing God were the pain used to be. Into remaining yourself of truth daily. You CHOOSE to believe God’s word over your own.
That is what surrendering looks like.