Often folks believe that when we surrender to God, we’re going to be missing out on getting what we want. We tend to hold the thought that letting go of something we hold dear in the material world means we’ll end up suffering its loss. We can even avoid churches, religion and spirituality in general because we believe that if we surrender to God, the presence of him in one’s life will actually be something to be feared. We tend to look at surrender to God as giving up beloved toys when it’s time to clean up, and we’re just not ready to. Without a frame of reference, we really don’t know the experiential happiness and joy that comes with letting go.
The presence of God in the place of wanting for material things is actually more like getting a hug you didn’t quite know you desperately needed. Remember as a child, you acted out over something when all you really wanted was a hug, or some other kind of loving reassurance from a parent? In a way, it’s like we avoid the hug when it comes to accepting love in place of lesser desires.
In groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s a well discussed phenomenon that people drink in order to come to such a place of personal destruction by fulfillment of desires that they ask for God’s help. God is infinite Mercy, and when help is requested, one’s life path becomes spiritualized. Previous desires for consumption of the material are eventually dissolved in the experiential reality of what it’s like to know ultimate forgiveness. All the will to act out is dissolved in that much sought for parental Hug.
When Jesus Christ came and showed the world The Way of compassion and forgiveness, many of us got so lost in grief over his death that we didn’t receive our due. Instead of being witnesses of divine surrender to God in action, we saw a broken man on a cross.
If we focus instead on the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, we get an entirely different picture of what is in store for us when we let go of the material. Students of enlightenment realize that the very body itself is to be surrendered. The body and all of its attachments and paraphernalia are only short-term leases. The peace that comes with surrender to God of the material is eternal.
