The Surprise of Surrender
Have you ever noticed that the Christian life often requires us to embrace the paradoxical nature of the Gospel? For Jesus to be faithful to his call or to ”secure victory” meant He had to endure the “defeat” of the cross along with all the contempt and ridicule along the way. Like Jesus, we too must live with paradox: that in dying we live, in giving we receive, and in letting go of control we battle chaos. On the front end, accepting paradox can seem reasonable but in the moment of trial or testing it feels like trying to catch a ball while looking into the sun. It is disorienting. The problem with paradoxical moments is we must die, give or let go first. The fear of the unknown can disarm our capacity to adequately welcome the difficulty in living paradox.
Acccepting the paradoxical nature of Gospel living helps us develop a deeper faith and step beyond the false belief that we can control events around us. Faith is defined as “having assurance of what we hope for and evidence of what we cannot yet see” (Heb 11:1). The nature of faith means leaning into the unknown with a confidence that runs deeper than the natural world. Ecclesiastes is a book that deals frankly with the issue of faith and control. It starts (1:2) and ends (12:8) with the Hebrew word Hebel (vanity or meaningless) and that word is dispersed throughout the book. In the context of Ecclesiastes, it means it is useless (vain or meaningless) for us to try to grasp God’s ways. We have no choice but to live in mystery. The author says it is futile to try to gain control through wealth, hard work, political power or the pursuit of pleasure. There is no way to order our life to create a pain free future. A verse that sums up the book well says this, “Dreaming all the time instead of working is foolishness. And there is ruin in a flood of empty words. Fear God instead,” (5:7). We deal with the unmanageability of life in two ways: active control (many words) or passive control (dreaming all the time). The dreamer says, “Life is too scary I will withdraw into a world of make believe where I will numb myself from the pain of disappointment or failure”. This form of passive control we often call being “laid back”. The other end of the spectrum is no better. The active controller says, “This world is so scary, and I am so alone I must work hard and stay busy to ensure my safety.” We call this person “type A” or highly efficient. Sadly, neither the active controller nor the passive controller will ever know the deep comfort of a strong God. The answer to the unmanageability of life is to live by faith. In this context, I would define faith as a willingness to accept with openness whatever God allows to come our way whether that is suffering or ease”.
Ecclesiastes says it this way, “Enjoy prosperity while you can. But when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. That way you will realize that nothing is certain in this life. In this meaningless life, I have seen everything, including the fact that some good people die young and some wicked people live on and on. This reminded me that no one can discover everything God has created in our world, no matter how hard they work at it. Not even the wisest people know everything, even if they say they do” (Ecclesiastes 7:14-15, 8:17; 9:1). Living freely by faith is a central call of the Gospel. Paul said, “You have been called to live in freedom” (Gal 5:13) and again “we don’t have to act like fearful cowering slaves” (Rom 8:15). We can let go of our controlling grasp on life and grow a willingness to be surprised by the God who is in control. Faith is living freely in the care of a sovereign God. If something is good, we can freely enjoy it; if sad we can sorrow over it; if funny we can laugh with abandon about it. Ecclesiastes says it this way, “There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to rebuild. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to love and a time to hate” (3:1, 3-4). The author of Ecclesiastes is saying “Living with vulnerable dependence on God frees us to welcome any incident in life as a means for Him to further his work in our heart”.
When we live in fear trying to avoid the difficulty that life inevitably brings, we shut down our capacity to accept or enjoy whatever the Lord allows to come our way. In the past I counseled a woman who endured the difficulty of watching and caring for her father who had a terminal illness from the time she was 13 until he died when she was 27. As part of our work together I suggested she read a wonderful book by Gerald Sittser called, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss. In that book Sittser tells the story of his loss (his mother, wife and daughter all were killed in a car accident by a drunk driver). In one part he describes how a stump became a metaphor for the sadness he still felt because it was all that was left of a beautiful tree that was once a pleasant part of his backyard. Eventually, he landscaped around the stump which enhanced his sense of how it mirrored what was taking place in his life. Beauty was growing around and through loss. He says, “Now three years later, the stump remains, still reminding me of the beloved tree I lost. But the stump is surrounded by a beautiful garden of blooming flowers and growing trees and lush grass. Likewise, the sorrow I feel remains, but I have tried to create a landscape around the loss so that what was once ugly is now an integral part of a larger, lovely whole.”
The vignette about the stump and the truth Sittser was teaching powerfully impacted the woman I was counseling. She says, “I had read this and understood, particularly the opening lines. I had experienced loss that had pierced through the core of my being and left me with what was once a void, but now an abyss. Loss that defined me, transformed me, and forbade me from trusting or dreaming. This loss had not found its place in a ‘larger, lovely whole’. It was just ugly. It was an element of my past, present, and future with which to be reckoned. Because it was so big and precious, it framed a context through which the rest of my life was viewed. I wanted to believe that there was truly a way to landscape the remainder of my life in such a way as to reflect such an integral piece while somehow simultaneously celebrating the life that was beyond it. I simply couldn’t envision it. It seemed too difficult for the two to coexist. While still pondering these things, I found myself vacationing in Sequoia National Forest. I marveled at the splendor and magnificence of the largest living organisms on earth. The sheer height and volume of these trees was staggering. Over some 2,000-3,000 years, they had grown to a diameter of 40 feet at their base and towered 300 feet above the ground. To stand beside them created a dramatically humbling picture of creation. God’s fingerprint was clearly on them.
Having surveyed the most impressive of trees, in stark contrast, we happened upon Stump Valley. The aftermath of logging crews from the 1800s was devastating. Fields that once, undoubtedly, were breathtaking now resembled a graveyard of sorts. Enormous stumps and prostrate trunks now told a very different story. It was a very empty, hollow - almost sacred place. I had walked among them, cursed the loggers, and turned to walk away. It was at this moment, that what seemed like the very hand of God gently tapped me on the shoulder and moved me to return. I found myself once again noticing the contrast I had already photographed, unsure of why I felt compelled to stay. It then became very clear. I found myself staring at ‘a stump surrounded by a beautiful garden of blooming flowers and growing trees and lush grass’. Wildflowers everywhere - new life and growth all around the big, decaying trunk. Tears filled my eyes. My heart skipped wildly. It was as if God Himself had brought me to this very place to show me the picture of what he wanted to do in my own life. His promise displayed, in a scene arranged long ago, almost as if it were awaiting my arrival. I found my heart full of so many emotions: Absolute wonder and amazement that the God of all creation could have orchestrated my steps in such a way to walk me towards this very place and reach out to me as I began to walk away unchanged, he loved me too much to allow that to happen. Sorrow and hope both fully displayed. As I mourned and rejoiced simultaneously, I found myself authentically embracing the experience. A sense of loss and gain both realized, as I acknowledged that my heart had been enlarged to new capacities to love and live, through the grace of seeing life around and beyond its losses. The freedom to dream - the wildflowers do continue to grow. I have seen them.”
The graceful words this woman uses to describe God’s surprise in her life are exactly what I wanted to communicate. She came for counseling in part because moving ahead in a dating relationship was arousing intense fear. Her past anguish associated with the loss of her dad caused fear as she thought about giving herself to a man. She could not imagine that embracing the paradox of the Gospel, that beauty grows amid pain, could free her to move forward. As she opened her heart anew to God’s paradoxical ways, he surprised her. Relinquishing control helped her to hope in God’s ability to weave all of life into a “larger, lovely whole.” God’s surprise was not her only one on that trip. Two days later, her boyfriend who was accompanying her proposed and she (in great faith) accepted. God loves to surprise us (in more ways than one) and growing the faith to live out paradox frees us to live life with courage, faithfully following the path our Savior modeled so well.
Note: This article has been updated – it originally ran in the Fall of 2002