“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5–6

What does it actually mean to surrender to God when you don’t know what He’s doing? Because if I’m being truthful, my version of surrender sometimes looks like this: I pray. I cry. I ask God to fix it. I ask Him to help me. I tell Him, “Lord, I surrender it all to You.” I leave everything at the altar… and then I go right back and pick it up again. Why do we do that? Why do we feel the need to control every aspect of our lives? I think part of it is because the world teaches us that we can’t rely on anyone but ourselves. If you’re in a mess, get yourself out of it. If you want something, go and get it. If you want something done properly, do it yourself. And if I’m honest, I still struggle with that a lot. It’s actually funny because me and God talk. I know what I’ve prayed about. I know the things I’ve placed before Him. Yet somehow, I can still find myself trying to take matters into my own hands — and then wondering why I’ve ended up hurt, disappointed or right back in prayer asking God to help me with the very thing I said I had already surrendered.

I’ve started to realise something: sometimes I place God in the same category as everybody else. And He isn’t. People have disappointed me. People have hurt me. People haven’t always handled my heart with care. So naturally, I’ve learnt how to protect myself. I’ve learnt how to take control, depend on myself and prepare for things to go wrong before they’ve even happened. But God isn’t people. He is perfect. He is holy. He is God. So why am I trusting Him as though He’s capable of failing me in the same way people have? Maybe part of surrender is learning that I don’t have to understand everything God is doing in order to trust Him.

And that’s difficult. There are so many areas of my life that I pray about. There are things I’m working towards, things I’m hoping for and things I’ve spoken to God about that I won’t share just yet. Some things are still between me and God. But I know there are things I desire for my life, and sometimes I get so focused on how I think they should happen that I catch myself with both hands on the steering wheel when I’m not even supposed to be driving. I’m telling God, “Lord, take control,” while I’m sitting beside Him trying to grab the wheel. Turn here, Lord. Actually, maybe go this way. God, are You sure this is the right road? Meanwhile, I’m the one who asked Him to drive!

But that’s what surrender has been teaching me. Surrender isn’t just something I say. It’s something I have to practise. It’s easy to say “God, I trust You” when everything is happening the way I expected. But what about when I don’t know what’s next? What about when I’m waiting? What about when God’s timing doesn’t match mine? What about when I have an idea of where I want my life to go, but God hasn’t shown me how He’s going to get me there? That’s when trust becomes more than words.

I’ve realised that sometimes my need for control is really my way of trying to protect myself. If I can control the outcome, maybe I can stop myself from being disappointed. If I know what’s coming, maybe I can prepare myself for it. But surrender asks me to do something completely different. It asks me to trust God without needing to know the outcome first. And I’m still learning how to do that. Sometimes I’ll get it right. Sometimes I’ll probably find myself reaching for that steering wheel again. But maybe surrender isn’t saying, “God, I give this to You,” once and never struggling with it again. Maybe surrender sometimes looks like giving the same thing back to God again and again. It’s recognising when my hands have found their way back onto the steering wheel and saying, “Okay, God. I’m doing it again. You drive.”

Because surrender doesn’t mean I stop doing anything with my life. I can pray and still take action. I can have dreams and still work towards them. I can make plans. I can hope. I can want things. I just don’t have to control the outcome. And maybe that’s why Proverbs 3:5–6 means so much here. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart…” — not just the parts of my heart that haven’t been hurt. “…and lean not on your own understanding…” — not only when God’s plan makes sense to me. “…in all your ways submit to Him…” — not just in the areas that are easy to surrender. In all my ways. My plans. My future. My heart. My family. My purpose. The things I’m building. Even the things I’m still quietly praying about. All of it.

I’m learning that surrender isn’t about knowing what God is going to do next. It’s being able to say, “God, I don’t know exactly what You’re doing. I don’t know how You’re going to do it. But I know who You are. So I’m choosing to trust You more than I trust my need to control it.” Maybe that’s the real art of surrender — taking my hands off the steering wheel and trusting the One I’ve asked to drive.

Until the next chapter, Beloved.
— Alesia x