Last week, a dear friend of mine suggested I read Simply Tuesday by Emily Freeman. As you might know, I love book suggestions, so I picked it up and started reading it a few days later (anything to procrastinate the real world, right?).
Now, like every English teacher’s and politician’s nightmare, I’m going to use a line out of context. But I’ll quote it in the original context for those of you who have not read the book (the emphasis is mine, and is what I will be focusing on today).
As it turns out, Jesus doesn’t come riding in on a white horse to save me from my humiliation, my daily work, my endless list. Instead, he whispers a quiet invitation to keep company with him the way he came to earth to keep company with us. It won’t always feel like a rescue. It might feel like surrender. But on the other side of that space I find Jesus. I find his peace. I find his companionship.
The book is Freeman discussing finding God’s kingdom in the small things in our lives. But what stood out to me in this paragraph was this line about surrender. Jesus’ presence in our lives may not be the loud, three-genie-wishes experiences that we expect. It may feel more like a surrender.
I think we sometimes equate Jesus’ salvation as the receiving of the desires of our heart. We think, God’s salvation and grace is my entrance into grad school, or me landing this huge deal. We turn on our tunnel vision and make our desires the end goal, and through this, we don’t allow for God to move the way He wants to in our lives. Salvation sounds like a happy event, but surrender sounds terrible. Why would I surrender for anything less than exactly what I want? It’s a completely foreign concept to us. We were raised in a society that told us to fight until we have everything, and to never give up on anything.
This does sound noble. And I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t fight for things, or work hard for our goals. But when our goals don’t align with what God wants, then our fighting will feel futile and our trust in Him will suffer.
What a strange thing though. How can the active decision to give up end in anything but feelings of defeat?
I don’t have an answer to that. I do have some thoughts.
When I read this line, I read it in the context of processing feelings and emotions, something I have written about previously. Something I have had a hard time resolving is when to transition from experiencing/not suppressing “negative” emotions, to giving those emotions to the Lord and moving on. At some point, you will cross the line between experiencing an emotion fully and fixating unhealthily upon it. But what do you do when you reach that point?
Surrender.
Gross.
Lots of jokes about France come to mind.
I don’t want to be like that.
I think it is easy to buy into the lie that surrendering will make everything worse. We can’t really know what waits for us on the other side of surrender, so it is easier to hold on. But in reality, the joy of Jesus waits for us on the other side of surrender.
Maybe we should use a different word.
Jesus wants us to know that in this surrender, we can choose joy over pain when the world would suggest that we should still mourn. It’s not an easy or comfortable thing to do, but ultimately He wants us to live a life of joy, and when we are ready, He is there take our pain and replace it with love.
The world would have you live in continual pain and loneliness, amidst cries of “Now we’ve got bad blood” and “I walk a lonely road” and “That that don’t kill me can only make me stronger.” The alternative is not living weak-willed, but rather showing the world that you can choose joy over vendetta, and while surrendering may be terrifying and uncomfortable, we can trust that Jesus will meet us on the other side with open arms.