An act of surrender is probably one of the hardest things for a human being to do. There are a great deal of reasons for this, but a few come to the forefront. Our pride could be getting in the way, our desire to do everything ourselves as we want it to be done. We could be so caught up in trying to conform the wills of others to our own that we actually drive them away, disrespecting their own independence.

But I think the most profound reason for which we struggle to surrender is fear.

Surrendering the will is a beautiful thing, especially when we are surrendering it to God. God has given us the gift of free will. He is not a tyrant that is trying to rule over us and force us to do what He wants. He is not some puppeteer that is pulling the strings of our lives constantly, directing our lives like they are a piece of theatre. When God created us, He created us with the ability to choose. And how wonderful it is, how joyful He is, when we use our free will, the will that He has given to us, to choose Him.

While we have been given free will, which we can use however we like (albeit, not without consequences, which arise from all actions we choose, be they good or bad), we can make a conscious decision to give that will back to God. In giving our will back to Him we are not rejecting His gift – rather, we are perfecting it, we are showing Him how much we appreciate it, how much we love Him.

When we surrender our will to the Will of God, we are telling God that we have complete trust, faith, and confidence in Him. We are following the model of Our Blessed Mother Mary and St Joseph when they were asked to take on the greatest task of all – being the earthly parents of the Living God, the Word made flesh, the Saviour of the World, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Both were incredibly humble. Both demonstrated great faith, trust, and confidence in God. St Joseph in particular, who was going to leave Mary and move on with his life, surrendered his will to God’s Will when the Angel appeared to him in his dream. This great act of surrender brought St Joseph great rewards. His complete trust in God led to his being part of the life of Christ and being the spiritual father of us all. The Blessed Mother’s complete trust in God led her from a life as a humble handmaiden of the Lord to becoming Queen of Heaven and Earth, Mother of the Church, Mother of us all, and the most powerful intercessor we have in the Kingdom of Heaven.

But if surrendering our will to God’s Will is so wonderful, why do we struggle to do this?

Surrendering our will to God does not mean that we are giving up hope. And I think this is key in the discussion of why surrender can be so difficult.

We often struggle to surrender our entire will to the Will of God because our fears, our worries, our anxieties get in the way. Fear of the unknown is not uncommon. We often want to know what is going to happen next because it brings us some comfort. But this is not necessarily true comfort. True comfort is found in the Lord. And we can take great comfort in entrusting ourselves entirely to Him. Yes, it seems paradoxical, but I think we’ve come to learn by now that the ways in which God works tend to be as such.

I think that the prospect of surrendering our will to God’s Will scares us because we don’t know what God’s Will is. We worry that we are not going to get what we are hoping for, that the outcomes we wish for will not come into being. It can be incredibly daunting because we don’t have a guarantee of what might occur.

When we make an act of surrender to God, we are not just giving something that is holding us back and saying to Him, ‘here, take this, I don’t want it.’ We are giving Him everything, our entire will, all our worries, our anxieties, our concerns, our stress, our sorrows, our sadness, our joys, our heartaches, our hope, our love, our desires, our anguish, our feelings, our emotions, all of it. We lay it all down at His feet, and ask Him to take care of it all.

But God knows that we have hopes. And He assures us that when we surrender to Him these hopes are not destroyed.

One of the most beautiful prayers that Jesus has given to us is the Surrender Prayer. I discovered this prayer at the beginning of this year and I think we are truly blessed to have it.

The Surrender Prayer was given to a Neapolitan Priest, Father Dolindo Ruotolo. Fr Ruotolo had a great devotion to God and to the Blessed Mother Mary. He often called himself “the Madonna’s little old man” and the Holy Rosary was his constant prayer. The name ‘Dolindo’ means ‘pain,’ and this humble priest experienced much pain and suffering in his own life. He came from a family that had man financial struggles, and he suffered from several health conditions that made him weak. In the early years of his priesthood, accusations of heresy were brought against him, accusations which took years to clear. Yet no matter what trials this Servant of God faced, he surrendered himself to God, and Our Lord took care of him.

In private revelations, Jesus spoke to Father Ruotolo and gave him the words which he composed into the Surrender Prayer, a prayer we can pray as a Novena. In fact, Jesus said that “there is no other novena prayer more effective than this.”

Within the Surrender Prayer, Jesus tells us what we must do to surrender ourselves entirely to Him. He teaches us how we can stop worrying and thinking about all the problems we face and how to let go of trying to solve them all ourselves. He tells us how we should turn to Him, look at Him, and say to Him, “You take care of it.” He tells us how we need to close the eyes of our souls and rest in Him, surrendering completely to Him and trusting completely in Him. He says:

“If you say to Me truly, “Thy will be done,” which is the same as saying, “You take care of it,” I will intercede with all My power and I will resolve the most difficult situations.”

While the entire Surrender Prayer is so incredibly beautiful, I think one of the most striking parts is when Jesus says:

Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away on the flowing current of My grace. Close your eyes and do not think of the present, turning your thoughts away from the future, just as you would from any temptation. Rest in Me, believing in My goodness and I promise you by My love that if you say, “You take care of it,” I will take care of it all. I will console you, rescue you and guide you.

We can get so caught up in our worries, so battered and weighed down by our anxieties, that they can begin to take over our lives, even going so far as to overwhelm and incapacitate us. But Jesus wants us to surrender that to Him. Yes, He wants us to surrender our entire selves to Him, including our entire will to His own, but He promises us that He will take care of us. And Jesus has fulfilled every promise He has ever made. He fulfilled all the promises made to those in the Old Testament, and He continues to keep His promises to us to this very day.

The response to the Surrender Prayer sums up the disposition that Jesus wants us to have:

O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!

In surrendering to Him, we are giving ourselves entirely to Him. We are placing all our faith, trust, and confidence in Him, surrendering our will to His Will, His Divine Will. We may not know what that Will is, we may not know what to expect, what God has planned for us, but we trust that He will take care of us in every way, that He will guide us, that He will be there for us and never abandon us.

As mentioned earlier, this does not mean giving up the hopes that we have. Jesus tells us Himself:

Surrendering to Me does not mean to stress or to be upset, or lose hope.

We can still have hope that, in surrendering to God, in abandoning ourselves to Him, He will answer our prayers. If anything, I think we can take great comfort in knowing that Jesus Himself reassures us of this:

Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of all your affairs to Me and everything will be so peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind and complete surrender to Me will produce the effect that you desire and will resolve all your difficult situations.

Surrender yourself to the Lord, and He will work great wonders in your life. Give Him all you have, and He will give you His all in return.

God is so, so good.

(If you would like to pray the Surrender Prayer, here is a link to the prayer on Hallow: https://hallow.com/blog/how-to-pray-the-surrender-novena/. If you would like a physical copy of the prayer on a prayer card, you may be able to find some at your local Catholic church, or you can contact Mary’s Rosary Chain – http://www.marysrosarychain.org)