Moment-by-Moment Surrender
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
Some of the classic spiritual writers sound at first blush like fatalists.
Seventeenth-century priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade writes, “The truly faithful soul accepts all things as a manifestation of God’s grace.”
A cluster of spiritual masters around that time — Brother Lawrence, François Fénelon, Jeanne Guyon — incidentally some of my favorite writers, join De Caussade in advocating a moment-by-moment surrender to God in whatever comes your way.*
A deeper reading — and spiritual classics always deserve a deeper reading — finds that the surrender of which they speak isn’t passive and fatalistic. It is an active inner yielding to God, who is at work in this moment.
Humans will always wrestle with the problem of evil and with questions of God’s sovereignty, especially when life deals us a harsh blow. Do we accept all circumstances as originating from God’s hand? How can we lean into holy surrender without tipping into hopeless resignation?
Where I’ve landed — and I think I’m mostly in the same place as the classic writers — is here:
God is good and intends our everlasting well-being.
God made a world with the possibility of evil and suffering to also make room for great redemption and good.**
No circumstance in which we find ourselves — whether God ordained it or we blundered our way into it — is outside God’s reach (Ps. 139.8).
Bottom line: God is never not where we are. Whatever boat we’re in, God is, through Christ, quite literally in it with us.
True surrender is a recognition that my circumstances — regardless of whether God “caused” them or God “allowed” them — are the messy threads that God can weave together into a tapestry of good. By actively yielding to God, I can participate with and in some sense even shape and color that tapestry.
Let’s make this practical and personal. Lately I’ve become aware that on nearly a daily basis, when a hard situation comes my way or the monotony of life chafes my soul, I begin to long to be somewhere other than where I am. Sometimes these longings sound quite spiritual. So when I spot one, I do my best to hold it up to the light of Christ and ask whether the longing is more an invitation to move toward something good or a temptation to escape from something unpleasant. When it turns out to be the latter — a temptation to escape — it’s an opportunity to return in that moment to active surrender: “God, you’re here. Help me to be here, too, and see where you’re at work.”
* Nathan Foster pointed out on the podcast that these writers all lived around the same time in France.
** Credit to Willard — listen to him expound on this point here.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
P.S. If you’re looking for a simple way to enter into Lent, Renovaré’s Content Manager Grace Pouch partnered with her mom to create a guided journey through selected readings from John’s gospel. Download the free resource here: Lenten Readings for Conversation and Communion with God.
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
On this week’s episode of Life With God, James Catford joins Nathan to talk about Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s 18th century classic book on trust, Abandonment to Divine Providence (The Sacrament of the Present Moment).
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2.
Join over two thousand readers in the Renovaré Book Club to read our fourth and final book of the season, Abandonment to Divine Providence. Reading begins March 3, 2025.
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3.
“What he ordains for us each moment is what is most holy, best, and most divine for us.” Read an excerpt from De Caussade.
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4.
James Catford is a mentor and founding chair for CCPL (The Center for Christianity and Public Life). CCPL is offering a five-day experience for teenagers to integrate faith and civic life called Public Good Generation. We love seeing initiatives that help young people seize the present moment as an opportunity to cooperate with God for the public good!
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5.
The Dallas Willard Podcast is doing an 8‑part series called “Hearing the Voice of God” replaying talks Dallas gave in South Africa in 1993.
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6.
George Fox writes, “the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt.” In “Walking in the Power of God,” Fox expresses his faith in God’s sovereignty even in the most difficult circumstances.
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
WORTH QUOTING
Allow God to act, and abandon yourself to Him. Let the chisel perform its office, the needle do its work. Let the brush of the artist cover the canvas with many tints which only have the appearance of daubs. Correspond with all these divine operations by a simple and constant submission, a forgetfulness of self, and an assiduous application to duty.
– Jean-Pierre de Caussade (source)
TO CONTEMPLATE
Augusta Savage in her studio working on her World’s Fair monument “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
1939
(source)
The artist Augusta Savage is shown here sculpting a 16-foot monument for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Her beautiful work of art features a choir of Black children, arranged like the strings of a harp. The hand of God enfolds the assembly. (You can read the story of Augusta Savage here.)
De Caussade compares God to a sculptor, using the chisel of circumstance to smooth away our rough edges and transform us into a work of art that sings his glory to the world. I will keep “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in my mind this week as a reminder to surrender to the Artist’s formation and to praise him for his handiwork.
TO PONDER
Pause for a moment to recognize God’s presence.
Perhaps try this breath prayer:
[In] I’m here .…
[Out] You are here .…