For at least the last decade, I have selected a word-for-the-year to guide me through that upcoming 365 days. In December, I begin listening, watching, paying attention to what word the Spirit might be showing me. If my memory and journals serve me well, these are the words I have lived with; words that have somehow shaped me through the course of that year.
2014 — Freedom
2015 — Grace
2016 — Let it Be
2017 — Beholding
2018 — Face to Face
2019 — Threshold
2020 — Awareness
2021 — Vision
2022 — Joy
Sometimes the yearly word comes easily. Other times it takes some paying attention. For example, 2018’s “Face to face.” I originally came across it one morning while reading John 1:2 in the Passion Translation: “They were together face to face in the very beginning.” Because the wording was so different than what I was used to in my NRSV, it startled me. Later I was reading a post by Graham Cooke: “A face to face relationship with you is God’s dream.” Okay. That’s a bit odd. Later that night, I was sitting at my son’s watching the first episode of the crime thriller, “The Blacklist,” when Liz Keen says to her father Reddington concerning the man being held in the interrogation room, “He wants you face to face.” That pretty much did it for me. But for good measure, when I got home and was sitting at my dressing table, I looked toward my book shelves, and there in the midst of some 500 books, my eyes fell on Bill Johnson’s book entitled, you guessed it, “Face to Face with God.” And would it surprise you to know that when I picked up Frederick Buechner’s “Listening to Your Life” and turned to the day’s reading, this is what I found: “…Savior, be born in each of us who raises his face to Thy face.” 2018’s word was pretty much settled.
The words in and of themselves are not magical. They merely serve as guides or tools to direct me in my thinking and in my ongoing and hopefully growing relationship with the Lord. But some do have more swaying power than others. A greater impact. Like 2023’s.
I knew in mid December of 2022 that “Surrender to Love” was the word for the upcoming year. It was just a matter of waiting for the calendar to turn. And turn it did. With vengeance. If I knew then what I know now, I would have just as quickly turned my head, said I didn’t hear correctly, and chosen another word. But, alas, I did not. It has been a hard word in every stretch of the imagination, but one that has carried me through, laid a foundation, and changed me.
Surrender to Love.
The word surrender itself gets a bad rap as most think of it as a sign of weakness. However, to surrender to something or Someone bigger than ourselves is the only way to free us from ourselves. From our own egos and painstakingly self preoccupations. The problem with most of us, I’m afraid, is that we focus more on obedience than surrender. Obey. Obey. Obey. And while they are closely related, they are different. To put it visually, think of surrender as the soil out of which the tree of obedience grows. God doesn’t simply want our compliance, He wants our hearts … our love. No doubt, those who surrender obey. But not all who obey surrender. I really got to thinking about this at tonight’s New Year’s Eve service. While responsively reading the Ten Commandments, I thought to myself, “We talk so much about obeying these commandments, but we rarely discuss surrendering to the love at the forefront of them.” In fact, if our obedience is anything less than a response to love, I suggest our obedience might not really be “Christian” but rather a clanging cymbal.
Surrender to Love.
And whereas the world despises the word surrender, it trivializes love and gives it all sorts of sordid romantic connotations. But love is a powerful force. Just think of what it can do. Love can soften a hard heart. It can renew trust after it has been shattered. It can inspire acts of genuine self-sacrifice. It can free us from fear.
Surrender to Love.
No one is created for isolation. We are magnificently and mysteriously designed for an intimate relationship with the Divine … with the One Who is Love Himself. When we surrender to that Love, we are not bowing to someone else’s contaminated or self-preoccupied pale imitation or pitiful insecurities. We are surrendering to the Perfect Love of the One Who knows us, sees us, and wants absolutely nothing for us but that which is good.
But I would be foolish to say to love is always easy. In fact, love cannot only be hard but sometimes it’s just plain dangerous. Why? Because love always demands surrender if it’s going to be love. And surrender hurts, I don’t care how you look at it, because it demands our ego.
This surrender to Love will look different on you than it does on me or your neighbor because we each have own story; our own relationship with God, with others.
Quite frankly, I’m somewhat looking forward to my word for 2024. But just because I’ve got a new one coming doesn’t mean I’m laying down Surrender to Love — or any of the previous year’s words. They all continue to have their impact upon my life. But this has been a hard one. Surrender always is.
Bless you, dear reader, as you enter 2024. And if you so desire, may the Lord lead you to your own word that will shape you, strengthen you and lead you towards a wholeness of spirit, soul and body that can be found nowhere else except in this One Who loves you so very much and desires relationship.
Journal entry dated May 24, 2005:
“Remember, saying ‘uncle’ to God is never a loss. It’s always a win!”
Let it be…
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