Sunday, March 29, 2009

Striving to surrender...

Seeking God is not just an operation of the intellect, or even a contemplative illumination of the mind. We seek God by striving to surrender ourselves to Him whom we do not see, but who is in all things and through all things and above all things.

Thomas Merton. Seasons of Celebration, p. 224.

Do you know that you are never absolutely sure you're right when you're living in faith? That's exactly why it's called "faith"! At the crucial moments in your life's decision making, you are always trusting in God's guidance and mercy and not in your own perfect understanding. You're always "falling into the hands of the living God" as Hebrews (10:31) says, letting God's knowing suffice, God's arms save.

Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

I think at long last I am coming to see the truth of statements like this... God knows it's taken long enough, but he is a patient God, and he's allowed me to go gradually learning this way of surrender, because I am by nature such an un-surrendering person. I somehow find it comforting to look back over Jesus' own life, and to realise (the extreme example being in the garden at Gethsemane, Luke 22:39-49) the even he didn't find surrender easy, perfectly though he did in the end do it.

3 comments:

Sue said...

Oh, yes!!! Striving to enter his rest. What a paradox, eh, Mike?

It is so terribly hard to surrender. It's so counter-intuitive. We are surrendering to something we cannot see or feel or touch, and with the eyes of faith which, as that cool quote so aptly puts it, has nothing really it can rest upon ... except him, really. In one way it's just totally mind boggling that we can surrender at all. How he permeates everything, that we can do it.

How I look forward to a time when we are beyond, though, into the "more". :)

A Secular Franciscan said...

I too struggle with surrender. So often I want what I WANT, anmd I don't seek what God calls me to do.

Veritas said...

Amen! As I slowly age, my faith while sure is no longer certain. Allowing for a bit of mystery and less surety can be scary but also liberating, that only a living relationship can bring.