Fear of surrender.
Do you have a fear of surrender? I’d never really even thought about that.
Here’s what got me thinking about this – overthinking as usual. It’s a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert that deals with a fear of surrender.
Disclaimer: I’m an Elizabeth Gilbert nonfan, for the most part. She wrote Eat, Pray, Love, which was made into a movie with Julia Roberts – it’s waaaaay too New-Agey for me. Then there’s her involvement with Rob Bell. I’ll leave that right there. I don’t think I want to get into Bell right now. You can comment below if you’re so inclined.
Anyway. Here’s her quote about a fear of surrender:
You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.
Ponder that, pilgrim.
Here’s the implication: most of us have control freak tendencies. We like to call the shots. We don’t like to think that there are areas of our life we can’t manage.
Surrender implies strongly that we aren’t in control.
Think of a textbook example of surrender. You are in the military. You are in battle. The enemy surrounds you. And the enemy commanding officer demands that you surrender to him.
With that surrender, you are giving up your rights to yourself. You have handed yourself over into the hands of someone else who can do with you what they please.
In other words, you’ve lost control. That’s where the fear of surrender comes in.
Elizabeth Gilbert states that you never had control. All you had was anxiety. You worry about the things you have no control over. Hence, you have a fear of surrender.
I almost hate to bring up COVID-19 again. Dude, I am so over this. But it’s here, and it’s not going away, at least here in the United States … not anytime soon, it seems. I am comforted, sorta, in knowing that the odds are very good I won’t get it, and if I should, the odds are very good it won’t kill me.
What is concerning, though, is fear and depression are also rising. According to a poll conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation, almost half of Americans report that the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health. You may not get the virus, but there’s a 50% chance that it’ll mess with your mental and emotional health. That’s where the anxiety comes in. You do have some control over COVID-19 – there seem to be ways to avoid getting it (duh) – but there can be other significant health tolls.
So there’s that fear of surrender, the fear of loss of control. Which you never had anyway. Instead, you just worried.
Worry and anxiety haven’t historically been my kryptonite; I’m the depression case study. That’s been an issue for, like, forever, but my head injury just compounded it. (But, as I’ve stated plenty of times before, good healthcare, both medically and psychologically, along with my faith, keeps things pretty well in check. Yay!)
I don’t know where your head is these days, but I’ll wager a couple of these questions have come up:
- Do I have enough money in case the economy shuts down?
- Will I keep my job?
- What’s school gonna look like in the fall?
- Are we going to have to social distance forever? and masks?
- Will I get sick? Will someone I care about get sick?
- Can life ever be back to normal, or is this it?
And so on. Even knowing you aren’t alone doesn’t help much.
Finally, the elephant in the room question: “How do I trust God in all of this?”
Ancient script addresses this. Thanks, Paul. Here’s a classic familiar passage, but it sure merits revisiting. Pretend like you’ve never heard this before. It’s Philippians 4:6 – 8:
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Right? Is that the cure for your fear of surrender?
There’s your pattern, your plan. Pray like there’s no tomorrow. Pray hard. Be specific. Holler if you need to. And then – focus your heart and pour it out in praise.
Here’s Dr. Tony’s prescription:
- Write out your prayers. Code them in some fashion if you don’t want anyone to snoop. But write them down. This little exercise gets the snakes out of your head and onto paper, where they can be addressed. Do this. No excuses, okay?
- Don’t sugarcoat anything. This isn’t a time for you to try to convince God of your spirituality. If you’re a holy wimp, that’s okay. Give yourself permission to be weak. Be transparent. It’s not like you’re trying to convince God you’re someone you aren’t.
- Shift to praise. If you just can’t muster up enough strength to praise spontaneously, crack open your Bible and read some Psalms. Aloud, if you can. Here’s 10 of my favorites:
- You’ll see in some of these Psalms where the psalmist says some pretty dark things before moving on to praise. I think there’s a replicable pattern there.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
In the spirit of keeping it real, I affirm that these days are just crazy scary. There is that fear of surrender in the mix.
The mandate, though, is to surrender. You are, in effect, giving up your rights to yourself and letting God possess and own you.
That’s some sweet surrender right there.
Be well.