Part One:
Surrender and Suffering
Two concepts that are in conflict with most people’s intended way of life are surrender and suffering. Many people I know are spirited, bring-it-on, and get-it-done kinds of people whose disposition is not to surrender or to cease resistance but instead to fight, particularly for their own rights or their perceived rights. In addition, most of the people I know well are wired to contest each struggle, battle, obstacle, conflict, or opposition they directly or indirectly encounter.
Regarding suffering, few of us want to think about the worst-case scenarios that might move us toward or take us into the middle of an enduring state of unhappiness, distress, turmoil, or pain of any kind. When we think of those who suffered in the Bible, we are reminded of Job who lost everything, Joseph who was sold as a slave, John the Baptist who was beheaded for his beliefs, Jesus, of course, who paid the ultimate price for the sake of the world, and his mom Mary, who suffered the loss of her son in a most dreadful way. To suffer is to undergo some sort of pain as a result of circumstances, sometimes but not always out of our control. Heartache and heartbreak are often associated with the pain we experience when we suffer.
These two words, surrender and suffering, are concepts most of us deliberately hope to sidestep. Wesley, however, in his proclamation and advancement of the Covenant Prayer, wishes us to think about surrender and suffering in a new kind of way. Surrender, in Wesley’s mind, I believe, is to cease any and all resistance to God’s will and way and wholeheartedly submit to God’s authority and, therefore, do God’s work in the world. Knowing the human condition is bent toward the consistent struggle to trust in ourselves and what we can control, Wesley endorses quite the opposite in the prayer. Wesley endorses letting go of control, whether real or perceived, and giving way to God’s purposes for our lives.
To be clear, giving way is not giving up. Giving way is the mindful effort and deliberate action to yield to God’s will, which, said one way, is to participate in God’s mission to restore the world toward its intended wholeness. Giving up is the exact opposite. In fact, to give up is void of any effort or action altogether. There is no physical action required to give up. To give up is simply to quit. Obviously, Wesley does not intend for Christians to quit. Wesley intends for Christians to seek first God’s will by becoming wholly devoted to God’s mission.
In a similar way, Wesley understands that to suffer is to subject ourselves to God’s will, even as far as the extremes of loss, inconvenience, misery, grief, and acute pain may take us. To suffer for God’s will is to embrace the unpleasantness of life, regardless of how intolerable it might be, how frequent it might be, or how long or short of a time it might be. Christians who surrender to God’s will cannot fully surrender without also realizing that bearing hardship of any kind, especially for the sake of others, might be inevitable and even necessary.
To surrender, even at the cost of whatever suffering it may cause, is to wholeheartedly and totally give ourselves to God and God’s mission. Deeply committed disciples give way to God’s will, way, and work, and embrace the image and likeness in which we’ve been created. This movement toward becoming fully human means that Christians must embrace and endorse what it means to surrender to God and suffer for God. Together, we’ll take the next seven days to explore what it means to completely dedicate ourselves to participating in God’s mission to restore the world to its intended wholeness.