We know we are supposed to surrender all to God, but we really don’t know what that looks like. We humbly agree to this undertaking and set off on our journey of surrender and abandonment. Yet once we pass through the city gates and reach the edge of the wild, what lies ahead isn’t on any map. It’s a track unknown. Here we stand, pack strapped to our back, walking stick in hand, with a compass that spins round and round. It’s almost worth a slight chuckle if this wasn’t life or death. Years of training and preparation got us no further than the rest of them.

To avoid looking stupid just standing there, most of us set off in the direction we suppose to be north. We have to do something right? Maybe an experience along the path will bring us knowledge. We’ll climb a mountain and be given a fresh outlook on life. Your journey may be adventurous and even daring, but soon you will descend and alight back where you were before, looking longing out your window with an odd awareness of heartache inside you as though you missed something along the way. This wasn’t the new perspective we had hoped for. But here, I assure you, is where so many deviate from the crux of the obvious truth about what it means to live the surrendered life. Our venture seemed to have brought us few answers and many more questions. There is a fork in the road on our expedition of truth pursuit and we are threatened to miss the whole point.

Here is the part in this ancient story when most hibernate part of their consciousness and let it fade into a forever sleep. It slowly decays under a snowfall of dust as life ticks on. You can ignore a lot of things, but time is not one of them. We have always known there was more, felt it within us, but always out of reach. Though we are travel-worn, we haven’t discovered anything new. Now we tire and sit on the edge of sleep when our objective had been to awaken to the truth, to the actual reality of things.

The way to surrender is giving over our aching heart to Him that gave it life. He treasures it and hides it away with Himself where harm cannot find it. But know this, you cannot keep it for yourself. Try as you might, it won’t remain in your chest for long. You can look away and pretend not to notice your heart in your outstretched hand with “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” at the receiving end, licking their lips. In their clutches, your heart will be devoured one bite at a time until you lay to rest on your deathbed.

“And all the time the joke is that the word ‘Mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say ‘Mine’ of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong – certainly not to them, whatever happens.” // C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

It is not until you are swallowed by the world, that the whole truth grips you. Grabbing you by the shoulders it says, “You don’t belong here!” Then, your journey lies in getting spit back out. When the truth takes a hold of you, its hands leave behind a new flavor, “Taste and see the Lord is good”. You will quickly realize that taste does not sit well with the world. You become a lump of vile matter in its bowels. You begin to upset its stomach and the people residing there hate you. You can try to live like them, but you’ll always be a foreign substance.

If you choose to do nothing, then sit you will and splash around in a puddle of the world’s stomach acid. As your life deteriorates into waste, you won’t complain because you’re duped into thinking this is fine. It’s all good because nearly everyone is here. Many are gathered at the neighborhood pool party as the world digests millions of lost souls. But if it so happens you make it out without your skin melting off, then well done. Here you stand, alone, soaked to the bone, covered in belly juices, smelling of vomit. Great, you are free. But freedom isn’t glamorous.

“We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life – those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain… Most of us can do things if we are on some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him.” // Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Doesn’t that just sound thrilling? I’ve noticed this teaching is seldom proclaimed from the pulpit. There are more appealing messages to focus on I guess. But the truth is a fairy tale killer. It will snap your entire universe to reality in an instant as you fall flat on the ground. Reality is full of scary truths and unknown paths, so most just prefer to lie in warm comforts, fast asleep, living the dream.

I’m sorry to be the one to inform you the forecast isn’t sunshine and rainbows. You can live on imaginary, fluffy clouds and never land. Or you can come down to where you are made to live and find you have the power to walk through storms. Real heroes don’t run away. Real heroes don’t hide from the truth. They know what separates them from the rest and it’s not courage or their abilities. They are selfless. That’s how they do what they do. The surrendered life is a choice between what is right and what is easy. Don’t be thrown into the mass grave site whose tombstone says, “Here lies a good soul who could have been a hero.”

– Paula Belle Flores