Surrendering Our Secrets
by Billy Strother
“Surrender” is not a passive word, nor is it a word in which many of us find comfort. Surrender flies against the grain. Surrender requires action against your self-interest, when our natural selves are bent toward wresting and maintaining control. Surrender is releasing yourself into someone else’s control.
Perhaps you are like me. When you first hear the word surrender, just a little hint of natural rebellion begins to rise. Much of our lives, we are counseled to never surrender. We buy into certain sayings.
It is not over until it’s over.
Never give up; never surrender.
Surrender is not an option.
Seeking to embolden his nation, Winston Churchill famously exclaimed in a broadcast to Britons during World War II: “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Playing multiple organized sports from the time I was 6 years old, through college, no matter the score, or how little time on the clock, our teams lived the maxim, “Never surrender.” As a young soldier in the military, the mantra of all our training was, “Never surrender!”
At 19, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. During my first year of military service, which occurred during the latter years of the Cold War, I was stationed at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, California, to study and learn the German language. In training, we were taught, “Engage the enemy to your last breath; never surrender!” As young soldiers and linguists in training, we had a standing joke we shared. “What do you say if you are ever captured in East Germany?” The tongue-in-cheek answer by us young soldier students? Say as the very first thing to your captors, in German, “Don’t shoot! I know secrets!” The joke was just to relieve the tension of, once in the field in Europe, a real possibility. The truth? “Never surrender” was ingrained in us from day one. Our oath was to take our secrets to the grave.
So many of us are steeped in a never-surrender culture. We have been indoctrinated, in the truest sense of the word, on every front to never surrender. Yet, as Christians, we know our only way forward is to surrender everything we are to the Lord. As church leaders, we are convicted that it is our responsibility to lead a surrendered life as an example to those who look to us for spiritual guidance.
Surrender is not an easy task. Surrender is not natural. Surrender costs something of ourselves. But it is when we surrender more of ourselves to the Lord that we are most like Jesus. Two word-pictures from Jesus’ ministry give us living definitions of surrender: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane; and Jesus on the Cross.
Remember that wonderful old hymn, “I Surrender All?” Would it be more honest to change the words and sing to the tune instead, “I Surrender Some?” Have you really surrendered all, or just some?
As church leaders, there remains so much pressure on us to look spiritually strong and perfect … to keep secrets about our imperfect selves. People are watching us … we teach Sunday school classes, give communion devotions, lead small groups, or preach. If there is hypocrisy in ourselves, we hate it. We know we are to lead by example, and we are called to be authentic.
So, can we grow to become more authentic leaders? Sure, we can. Our hearts hunger for greater transparency and authenticity.
Instead of just looking surrendered, we can live surrendered.
Greater surrender is not easy; it is not natural. Surrender will cost us a little more of ourselves. In greater surrender, we become what our hearts truly desire—we become more like Jesus.
How do we do it? How do we live surrendered rather than just look surrendered?
The answer is hard, but not complex: “Surrender your secrets.” How?
First: Root out every secret in you by employing the Bible as a guidebook for daily living.
The author of Hebrews 4:1 reveals, "For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires,” (NLT). The words of Scripture serve as a mirror of both who we are and who we can be, with the Lord’s help.
Second: Jettison the delusion that we can hide anything from God.
It is naïve at best, delusional at worst, to believe we can keep secrets from God. Confess to God your secret struggles (weaknesses, sins, brokenness, problems) to the Lord. We read in Psalm 44:21b, “For He [God] knows the secrets of the heart,” (NKJV). Since we cannot hide secrets about ourselves, we can surrender the truth about them to the Lord, the first step to forgiveness.
Third: Once confessed, ask forgiveness for the secrets.
The Psalmist writes in 103:11-12, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” A surrendered life celebrates forgiveness, which results in extreme gratefulness and joy.
As church leaders there is no more important gift we can offer the congregants than to live surrendered, rather than just look surrendered. Our greatest growth in leadership comes from surrendering more of ourselves to Jesus.
