Redefining What It Means to Give Your Life to God

For most of my Christian life, surrender meant one thing: annihilation.

I believed that giving my life to God required me to become utterly powerless, grudgingly doing what I didn't want to do because He had all the authority and I had none. Surrender was about being disempowered, reduced, resigned to whatever circumstances came because "His ways are higher than our ways."

This understanding of surrender created deep resentment in my heart, though I would never have admitted it. The idea of total submission felt emasculating, dehumanizing, like being trapped in a cage with someone holding all the keys.

I spent years in this mindset until a crisis forced me to confront the truth: the "surrender" I'd been taught wasn't surrender at all—it was spiritual abuse masquerading as devotion.

The False Gospel of Disempowerment

Religious surrender, as I'd been taught it, essentially says: "God wants less of you. You need to shrink so He can be bigger. Die to your dreams, your desires, your personality, your gifts—anything that feels like 'you' is probably selfish and needs to be eliminated."

This perspective turns surrender into a form of spiritual suicide. It suggests that God created us only to spend our lives apologizing for existing, constantly trying to become less human rather than more fully who He designed us to be.

I remember being taught phrases like "less of me, more of Him" as if God were somehow threatened by my full humanity, as if He regretted making me with a mind, will, and emotions that needed to be suppressed.

But this creates an impossible contradiction: How can a God who "fearfully and wonderfully made" us (Psalm 139:14, NKJV) simultaneously want us to spend our lives eliminating everything He created us to be?

The Breakthrough Moment

My understanding of surrender radically shifted during a season of intense spiritual crisis. I found myself screaming at God: "You have all the power! I am so angry that I have no power! I am helpless! I am trapped! You have all the power in the world and You won't do anything to help me!"

In that moment of raw honesty, I felt utterly disempowered and furious about it. I was raging against what I thought was God's design—that He would have absolute control while I had none.

But as Holy Spirit began to heal me through that crisis, He revealed something that transformed everything: true surrender isn't about disempowerment at all. It's about re-empowerment.

The Dance of Love

Holy Spirit began showing me a completely different picture of surrender—the surrender that happens between lovers who are making love out of deep passion for each other.

In that kind of surrender, there's total vulnerability combined with complete safety. There's self-giving that enhances rather than diminishes both people. Each person surrenders fully to the other, not out of obligation or fear, but out of overwhelming desire to give themselves completely.

This surrender doesn't reduce either person's humanity—it fulfills it. It doesn't create powerlessness—it creates the most powerful intimacy possible between two beings.

This, Holy Spirit revealed, is the picture of what surrender to God actually looks like. It's not about becoming less human; it's about becoming fully human within the safety of perfect love.

True Surrender: Coming Into Your Power

Real surrender to God isn't resigned acceptance of powerlessness. It's falling into all He is so that I can be all I am.

When I surrender to God rightly, I don't lose my personality, my gifts, my dreams, or my desires. Instead, I discover who I was truly created to be underneath all the lies, wounds, and false identities I've carried.

I come into my real power—not the power to control others or circumstances, but the power to make decisions out of wisdom rather than wounds, to love from wholeness rather than neediness, to act from faith rather than fear.

As Bill Johnson beautifully puts it: "If God wanted less of you, He wouldn't have created you. He wants all of you filled with all of Him."

This is the true Kingdom perspective: not "less of me, more of Him," but "all of me, all of Him." Complete integration rather than elimination.

The Safety to Be Fully Human

When I finally understood that God had no desire for me to feel unsafe in His presence, that He had no interest in reducing or dehumanizing me, everything changed.

I realized that He doesn't want me to grudgingly submit to His will while secretly resenting it. He doesn't want robotic obedience or fearful compliance. He wants passionate partnership with someone who chooses to align with His heart because it's beautiful, not because it's mandatory.

True surrender creates the safest space in the universe—a place where I can be fully myself without fear of rejection, manipulation, or control. It's where I can bring my questions, my struggles, my dreams, and my desires, knowing that He delights in who He created me to be.

Kingdom Versus Empire

The confusion about surrender comes from applying empire thinking to God's Kingdom. In human power structures, someone having absolute authority typically means everyone else becomes powerless. In earthly hierarchies, surrender often does mean disempowerment.

But God's Kingdom operates by completely different principles. In His Kingdom, when we surrender to Him, we don't become less powerful—we discover our true power. We don't become smaller—we become who we were always meant to be.

This is because God's power isn't like human power. Human authority often requires the suppression of others to maintain control. But God's power is creative, generative, empowering. When He has "all authority in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18, NKJV), He uses that authority to lift us up, not push us down.

His sovereignty doesn't threaten our agency—it establishes it. His lordship doesn't eliminate our personhood—it fulfills it.

The Practical Transformation

When my understanding of surrender shifted from disempowerment to re-empowerment, everything in my spiritual life changed.

Prayer became conversation with a loving Father rather than begging a distant dictator. Worship became celebration rather than obligation. Obedience became partnership rather than grudging compliance.

I discovered that I actually wanted to align with God's heart—not because I was forced to, but because His ways are genuinely beautiful, wise, and good. When I stopped seeing Him as a cosmic control freak and started seeing Him as perfect love, surrender became the most natural thing in the world.

I found myself empowered to set healthy boundaries, to use my gifts boldly, to dream big dreams, to love authentically—all because I knew I was safe in His hands. True surrender gave me the courage to be fully myself rather than a diminished version trying to please a demanding deity.

The Trinity as Our Model

If we want to understand what surrender looks like in God's Kingdom, we need look no further than the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit demonstrate perfect mutual submission to one another without any loss of power, dignity, or identity.

The Son submits to the Father's plan of redemption, but this doesn't make Him less divine. Holy Spirit submits to both Father and Son, but this doesn't diminish His personhood. The Father gives everything to the Son and Spirit, but this doesn't reduce His authority.

This is the pattern for all Kingdom relationships: mutual honor, mutual submission, mutual empowerment. No one has to become less for others to be more. No one has to be disempowered for order to exist.

Breaking Free from False Surrender

If you've been living under the burden of false surrender—if you've been taught that giving your life to God means becoming a shadow of who you were created to be—I want to invite you into a different reality.

God is not threatened by your full humanity. He's not intimidated by your gifts, your personality, your dreams, or your desires. He didn't create you as a cosmic accident that needs to spend eternity apologizing for existing.

He created you because He wanted you. Specifically you. With your unique blend of gifts, perspectives, and contributions that no one else in all of history can bring.

True surrender means bringing all of who you are into alignment with all of who He is. It means discovering that His will for your life isn't a prison sentence—it's the most fulfilling, empowering, life-giving path possible.

Living in Freedom

When surrender becomes re-empowerment rather than annihilation, when it becomes partnership rather than domination, when it becomes love rather than fear—that's when we begin to taste the abundant life Jesus promised.

We stop walking on eggshells around God, wondering if we've somehow displeased Him by being ourselves. We stop performing religious behaviors to earn His approval. We stop shrinking back from our calling because we're afraid of being "too much."

Instead, we walk boldly as His beloved children, knowing that He delights in us, believes in us, and has equipped us for works that He prepared beforehand for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10, NKJV).

This is the surrender that doesn't surrender at all—it empowers, it liberates, it transforms us into the fullness of who we were always meant to be.

The Invitation

If you've been carrying resentment toward God because surrender felt like spiritual death, if you've been struggling with giving Him your life because it seemed to require giving up your identity—I invite you to consider that what you've been taught about surrender might not be surrender at all.

The God revealed in Jesus doesn't want to diminish you. He wants to complete you. He doesn't want to control you. He wants to empower you. He doesn't want less of you. He wants all of you, fully alive and fully yourself, walking in perfect partnership with Him.

Come to Him not as a conquered enemy, but as a beloved child. Surrender to Him not as a slave to a master, but as a lover to the Beloved. Give Him your life not because you have to, but because you finally realize that in His hands, your life becomes everything it was meant to be.

This is the surrender that sets us free.

If this resonates with your heart but feels different from what you've been taught, I encourage you to study Jesus' example of how He related to the Father, and to pursue inner healing for any religious wounds that may be distorting your view of God's character. True surrender is the most liberating experience possible—if it feels like bondage, something has been misunderstood.

Blessings,
Susan 😊