Falling into Hope
This weekend the oak trees began their long surrender to winter. They shed the dying layers, and I watched the leaves fall and collect on the driveway. I can take the blower and make the driveway look clean but in the morning their surrender will re-decorate my drive.
Even though there is dying involved there is beauty. The whole thing got me to thinking about the difference between surrender and resignation.
Resignation
Life is a long line of broken stories. It is the reoccurring motif of hope deferred. Disappointments line up like planes at the Atlanta airport. Yesterday I heard a story of another accused spiritual leader. Accusation of impropriety. Accusation is not guilt for sure, but I felt cynicism rise up in my heart like a wound. The stories stack up over the years and it makes for a slippery slope into resignation. I don’t know how this particular story will play out, but I know that I can’t afford to make friends with resignation.
Resignation is a prayer buster that shuts down momentum with God.
Prayer is for confronting resignation. It is for breaking out of smaller ceilings closing in to smother my life. Resignation comes to take my hopes hostage, but prayer is for re-believing my way out of passive neutral. I’ve learned that resignation is a chosen posture, therefore, I choose to resist it.
I choose to complete the verse:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire realized is the tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)
Surrender
Surrender is different. It is given in anticipation of a hope and a future. While resignation hardens to the future, surrender believes in the future. Resignation protects because of the past, surrender projects forward toward the future and a better day: desire realized.
Spiritual closeness with God is always an altar of surrender. The dropping of the me-centered outer layers have to go. They have to be willingly dropped like leaves gently falling. Not so much in death, but in bowed submission to the true King. Without surrender my life will be managed by self-interest — a path which initially seems right but, in the end, leads to a dead end.
As much as I wish surrender was a one-and-done event; it is a daily path. A chosen culture for my life as I continue forward. If I keep this posture seasoned in by prayer then it goes quickly, if not, then it can turn into a costly season where resignation comes knocking. Like the story I included in my book Playing Chase with God:
A horse farmer once told me as we walked toward his barn:
“You ever heard of the feed bucket principle?”
“No sir”
“Well, a feed bucket is like our soul. When I feed these horses there is a residue of grain that gets stuck on the side of the bucket. If I wash out the bucket every day after feeding, that residue comes right out. But if I fail to clean out the bucket and it accumulates for several days in a row it hardens. The only way to get it clean once it hardens is with a wire brush.”
He paused and looked at me for effect.
“You ever had the Lord take a steel brush to you?”
I took his point.
If I watch over my soul with intentional surrender to the Lord, then the resignation can be washed away. If I let it settle in, I will begin to harden. Cynicism will take root and I will become a decidedly less hopeful person. A shadow version of the person I was meant to be.
Learning from the trees
Today is another beautiful October day on the farm. Shortly I will walk out and see the blanket of leaves surrendered to the ground. I may even look up to see a few making their way to the ground. In this I will remember that the trees are kindly reminding me to look up and remember what Jesus said plainly, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
The trees know. Spring is just around the corner.
Playing Chase with God book
