Surrendering to God’s will is not giving up …

This line from the Lord’s prayer usually causes me to take in a deep breath and then slowly exhale …

“Your kingdom come; your will be done … on earth as in heaven.”

I cannot pray this prayer without thinking of this line in the long version of the famous Serenity prayer:

“Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your Will.”

Surrender to your will?  I’ve been wired all my life to think of surrender as giving up.  But that’s not how the insightful Father Richard Rohr sees it, and I think he’s right:

Spiritual surrender is not giving up, which is the way we usually understand the term. Surrender is entering the present moment, and what is right in front of you, fully and without resistance or attempts at control. In that sense, surrender is almost the exact opposite of giving up. In fact, it is a being given to!