Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood [God].
—Step 3 of the Twelve Steps
For Father Richard, surrendering our lives to God is the very essence of a spiritual life:
Surrender will always feel like dying, and yet it’s the necessary path to liberation. It takes each of us a long time to just accept—to accept what is; to accept ourselves, others, the past, our own mistakes, and the imperfection and idiosyncrasies of almost everything. Our lack of acceptance reveals our basic resistance to life. Acceptance isn’t our mode nearly as much as aggression, resistance, fight, or flight. None of these responses achieve the deep, lasting results of true acceptance and peaceful surrender. Acceptance becomes the strangest and strongest kind of power. Surrender isn’t giving up, as we often think; it’s a giving to the moment, the event, the person, and the situation.
Our inner blockage to turning over our will is only overcome by a decision. It will not usually happen with a feeling, a mere idea, or a verse from religious Scripture. It is the will itself, our stubborn and self-defeating willfulness, that must first be converted and handed over. It doesn’t surrender easily, and usually only when it’s demanded of us by partners, parents, children, health, or circumstances. From the time we were young and according to our ability, we have all taken control and tried to engineer our own lives in every way possible. In fact, our culture doesn’t respect people who do not “take control.” [1]
Author Nadia Bolz-Weber describes her path to sobriety as less about following her own will than God’s:
When I stopped drinking, when I stopped going to bars every night and instead went to church basements, it felt like it was not a matter of will. It was against my will, actually, and I was furious about it. I seethed about having had booze taken away from me when it was the one thing I could rely on to even slightly loosen those muscles in my chest that knot up from the fear and pressure of just being human….
Getting sober never felt like I had pulled myself up by my own spiritual bootstraps. It felt instead like I was on one path toward self-destruction and God pulled me off of it by the scruff of my collar, me hopelessly kicking and flailing and [cursing]. God looked at tiny, little red-faced me and said, “that’s adorable,” and then plunked me down on an entirely different path. [2]
Richard continues:
Bill W. was wise enough to make surrender a clear Step 3 in the program. Jesus made it step one: “If any want to follow me, let them renounce themselves” (Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Matthew 16:24). I’m pretty sure that Jesus meant exactly what Bill W. meant: a radical surrendering of our will to Another, whom we trust more than ourselves. [3]
References:
[1] Selected from Richard Rohr, Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 10th anniv. ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021), 19, 20.
[2] Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint (New York: Jericho Books, 2013), 39–40.
[3] Rohr, Breathing under Water, 21.
Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, drop (detail), 2020, photo, Albuquerque. Click here to enlarge image. Water’s shapes and currents can be confusing. Where is the beauty in being underwater?
Story from Our Community:
I’m an elder of an Indigenous society. Recently, my beloved received a terminal medical diagnosis. Our prayer and contemplative life have become a daily practice of prayer focusing on love, mercy, and gratitude. During this time, I have noticed the importance of being careful with my perspective which feeds my thoughts and leads to words and actions. My attachments, which were disguised as love, have become so clear to me. Through the love of Christ, I began to notice the things in my life that I should grieve for, and what is not worth grieving. I realize that within everything there dwells “that which doesn’t end”—or Love. Great suffering has shown me this truth. I am finally surrendering to the vulnerability of receiving, rather than constantly bartering for more.
—Duncan G.
