Life Lessons 11

The eleventh life lesson is Surrender. Learning to surrender makes life more enjoyable, meaningful, and peaceful. When you try to control the uncontrollable you lose the enjoyment of the experience of life and become exhausted. Refusing to surrender leaves you exhausted, hinders your relationships, destroys your happiness.

You don't know what is best for you. Let God be God in your life. Learn to pray like Jesus, “Thy will be done.” Your plans are only a working blueprint; let God make His last minute changes as He sees fit.

Learn to receive. It is more blessed to give, but we must also learn to be blessed by receiving. Often our pride gets in the way and we lose out on this blessing. Surrender to what God and others give you. Accept what they give as it is given, not as you wish it would be.

Listen to all that someone has to say before disagreeing with her. Let her express herself in her own words from her own perspective. Don’t demand that everyone think and feel exactly as you do. Surrender for the time it takes for others to fully express themselves so that you fully understand them before making any comments.

Learn to be happy with the way things are if you can't change them. Surrender to reality. Peace comes when we stop struggling. Ask: What do you want to change? Why do you want to change it? Is it possible for me to change it? If it is not possible, then surrender. Opportunities we would never have thought of come only after we surrender. Learn to pray the “Serenity Prayer”:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.
--Proverbs 3:5-6