Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David G. Benner

Author:David G. Benner [Benner, David G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-06-23T23:47:00+00:00

FLOATING AS SURRENDER

I recently had a fascinating experience teaching some people how to swim. A group of spiritual directors I was working with in the Philippines came with my wife and me to the beach for a few days of holiday. All were considerably more advanced on the spiritual journey than in their swimming skills. In fact, all were complete nonswimmers, and all had some degree of terror of the water.

But it was remarkable how quickly they learned to swim. Within an hour of first entering the water wearing life jackets, having just released their white-knuckled grip of the sides of the boat, all of them had abandoned the life vests and were snorkeling on their own in the ocean. How could this be possible?

The key was not skilful instruction. The key was that they had already grasped the spiritual principle of surrender, that we already had a relationship of trust, and that they were willing to enter the water and let go of the side of the boat.

They trusted me when I told them that they would float, and lo and behold, when they took off their life vests and lay back in the water, they did just that. And they trusted me when I told them that they could breathe through the snorkel without having to lift their heads out of the water, and lo and behold, this also proved true. They had learned to surrender to God, so learning to trust in this situation was relatively easy.

With delight one woman exclaimed, "Nobody told me that you don't have to do anything to float!" She made a more profound spiritual point than she realized.

The English word surrender carries the implication of putting one's full weight on someone or something. It involves letting go-a release of effort, tension and fear. And it involves trust. One cannot let go of self-dependence and transfer dependence to someone else without trust.

Floating is a good illustration of this, because you cannot float until you let go. Floating is putting your full weight on the water and trusting that you will be supported. It is letting go of your nat ural instincts to fight against sinking. Only then do you discover that you are supported.

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