My Surrender Surprise

Thursday, September 26, 2013

My Surrender Surprise

11:24 PM | Posted by Scott | Edit Post

What is the destination of a Journey to Surrender?

I've been writing here at "Journey to Surrender" for almost three years now. Yet just this past week I had a huge "aha" discovery regarding the word surrender. I have no idea how it took me so long to see this.

When you hear the word "surrender," what do you think of? Defeat? Loss? Giving up? Being taken captive? Waving the white flag? A lost cause?

But none of these are the kind of things I refer to when I talk about a "surrendered marriage." Oh no, not at all!!!

So what does surrender have to do with marriage?

The word surrender actually comes from two Anglo-Norman French words: Sur and render. Let's break it down

1. Sur - a prefix meaning over and above. Think surcharge or surtax. Something you pay over and above regular charges or normal taxes.
2. Render - to give. To hand over. To abandon oneself entirely to.

Put these two together and what do you have? You have the very heart of marital surrender.

To go over and above in giving to your spouse, including giving your self.

And Then Some

Surrender within marriage, in essence, means the surrender of self. Self-centeredness, self-protection, self-promotion and self-reliance have no place in a surrendered marriage. It means not looking so much to your rights as to your responsibilities and to the good of your relationship. It may involve laying aside your personal preferences, sacrificing your self for the sake of your spouse and the good of your marriage.

This is not giving out of compulsion or duty, but out of love and a desire to see your wife or husband thrive.

It is also not giving in order to earn love. No, in a surrendered marriage, you already believe in the love of your spouse. You give from the place of love not to get it. You also give out of the tremendous well of grace and love that you have been given in Christ.

It is not giving to get, either. It's not a mindset of "I'll scratch your back, but you better scratch mine at least as much if not a little more." That's self-serving and manipulative. We are after unconditional love.

Surrender means giving in order to bless and giving to foster intimacy. It means learning what love looks like to your spouse, and then doing that in the little things every day.

Surrender means giving your spouse what he or she needs from you - and then some. Try to out-give, out-bless, and out-love each other. That is the only kind of competition that belongs in a surrendered marriage.

Holding Nothing Back

A surrendered marriage means giving yourself to your spouse 100%, and holding nothing back, abandoning yourself.

Today everyone is talking about 50-50 marriages, where the goal is to make everything equal and fair. I'm suggesting you subscribe to a different paradigm. I suggest a 100-100 marriage is more in keeping with the biblical model of marriage, that is Christ and the church. That is living as one flesh.

Giving yourself means being willing to be totally naked before your spouse in every sense (emotionally, physically, spiritually). Are you bold enough to be naked without shame?

Now to be clear, giving your self is not denying who you are, but bringing the fullness of who you are into your marriage in order to serve and bless your spouse and strengthen your relationship. Just like Jesus brought the fullness of himself, fully God and fully man, to the cross for our benefit, in order to live in intimacy with us forever:

Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Ephesians 5:2 (MSG)

Surrender is not a natural or easy thing for most of us. Something in us resists the notion. Certainly it isn't prevalent in society at large, where seemingly everything is about "me."

Yet surrender is the very thing we are called to in marriage as God designed it. I'm certain of that fact.

What do you think of my surrender surprise? Does my definition of surrender make sense to you? Where have you struggled with surrender as I have defined it? Let us know by leaving a comment.

photo credit: jajian / 123rf.com

Labels: Being One Flesh, Intimacy, Love, Surrender, The Bridal Paradigm

12 comments:

Bob said...: This is how I've always defined marriage. As I see it, it's an expression of Ephesians 5:21 and Philippians 2:3-4. It's also why I get weary of the complimentarian/egalitarian debates. In a fully "surrendered marriage" as you call it, it's a distinction without a difference.; September 27, 2013 at 8:24 AM
jfdumke said...: You nailed it Brother! Great insight and nicely crafted. The tricky part is to live it out in the context of our self-absorbed culture. To live it out not only in our marriage, but in all relationships. It gets really dicey when it comes to loving those who I really don't like at all, but that's exactly what Jesus does, Loves across the divides of culture.... When we are Called, Told, Commanded to love our neighbor that means all of our neighbors.....

We are to love...
Whites
Blacks
Latinos
Rich
The 1%ers
The 99%
The poor
Gays
Muslims
Republicans
Democrats
Tea Partiers
The pain in the Ass person who gets on your nerves

The list is endless and boundless

But then so In God’s Love for You and all of God’s creation!; September 27, 2013 at 9:31 AM
Scott said...: Bob - you are so right. It's not about what you call it, it's about how you live it!

JF - Culture fights so hard against this kind of living - and that makes it harder. Still the bar is set by Jesus' example, as you said.; September 27, 2013 at 12:26 PM
Anonymous said...: It's interesting, whenever any one references 50/50 marriage, my visual mind always conjures up some image of Christ holding back 50% of Himself and how that would affect the church.; September 27, 2013 at 2:48 PM
Scott said...: Good point, Robyn. Imagine if Jesus had said. "Okay, Father, I'll do the going to earth bit, and I'm down with preaching cool parables, but I'll pass on the part about dying a cruel death."; September 27, 2013 at 2:52 PM
Anonymous said...: I know, right?!; September 27, 2013 at 4:28 PM
Cassie from True Agape said...: Thank you for sharing! Surrender is indeed a willingness to let go and to give something up on your own.; September 30, 2013 at 7:36 PM
Unknown said...: My favorite passage is, '...giving your self is not denying who you are, but bringing the fullness of who you are into your marriage...' Seeing marriage as a way to help each of us thrive and become better through surrender is beautiful, Scott. Love this!; October 2, 2013 at 4:16 PM
Scott said...: TA - yes surrender has to be e choice freely made! So right you are.

Bonny - so many confuse dying to self with losing yourself. Surrender is really about finding you true self.; October 6, 2013 at 5:10 AM
Unknown said...: Thank you, Scott. You define the ideal way to love our spouses. After 22 years of marriage, I know I have failed at this as I allow career, kids, myself to take my attention while I "take for granted" the love I receive from my wife. When you look at our "body of work" nothing can be more important than our relationship with Christ and secondarily our focus on loving our spouses "as Christ loved the church". This passage has given me a great vision of where I need to go with my marriage. Thank you for your insight and wisdom.; October 15, 2013 at 9:59 AM
Scott said...: Thanks, Josh. The good news is, it's never to late to change our marriage paradigms!; October 15, 2013 at 1:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Surrendering is not an easy thing to do... it's much easier to talk about it than to do it. But it's always beautiful to see what happens when we surrender to the ones that love us, we are able to see that they will truly protect us... and it helps to deepen our love.
Thanks for the post!; October 19, 2013 at 6:43 PM