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Surrender:

1. What surrender does not mean.

• It does not mean defeat, as in you have been beaten.
• It does not mean that you are through defeat establishing a peace treaty, as in you remain sovereign over your country, which is yourself.
• It does not mean that you are giving up benefits and have to tolerate abuse.

1. What surrender does mean

• It literally means, “to render over, or give way, for one’s own benefit”
• It is a relinquishing of my attempt to control what I cannot control; from that standpoint, the “defeat” is the relinquishing of pride, denial of need for help, or actions that make my life unmanageable
• Recovery from any kind of addiction has surrender as a key beneficial step:

1. A person first admits that they cannot control “life,” but they wish to live life
2. Surrender occurs when we seek a path, person, or process that can do this for us
3. surrender: “I cannot; therefore, I surrender to what God and others can do for me what I cannot do for myself”

God and surrender

Actions of surrender imply that a person is “rendering over” “giving back” or “returning” something that was taken from someone them or someone else. In emotional and spiritual surrender, we, as humans, are “giving back” to God what we “took” from Him.

We “stole” our hearts from God; we took our feelings, needs, desire, longings and hope and refused the dependency upon God that these inherent characteristics require.

We are created dependent, but will we remain vulnerable to using that dependency well or refuse to depend?

Surrender really is “re-depending” on God as the Source of primary connection, presence, and fulfillment.

We were born dependent and created to develop resilience in life and living through dependence.

God gave us:

• Fear - so that we would ask for help
• Hurt - so that we would seek healing
• Sadness - to resolve loss through grief

When we surrender, we are returning to how God made us, with the ability to be:

• connected to Him

• present with Him
• fulfilled by Him

This allows us to experience all the relational wonder that life has to offer. But we must be “good at dependency.” We must start with knowing our feelings and using them as they can be used for our benefit.

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