Ready for a “Full Surrender”

In catching up with C.S. Lewis after an unwanted and unnecessary hiatus, I landed on an excerpt titled, “Full Surrender.” The title immediately struck a chord in my heart. It is the exact thing that I have been struggling with. The thing that has me second guessing my actions and regiment of life. While I have always considered myself a Christian, I have had doubts in my allegiance toward Him.

In “Nice Is Not Enough,” C.S. Lewis said:

But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of ‘nice’ people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world–and might even be more difficult to save.

I have always considered myself a ‘nice’ person. A person who would be there for my friends and family if they needed me. But what I struggle with is the difference in being amiable and socially sound and being of Him and for Him.

In “Full Surrender,” C.S. Lewis said:

“A fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor–that is the only way out of our ‘hole.’”

I see my imperfections in my day-to-day life and wonder why and how I could act the way that I do. For someone who has been given so much and someone who has had infinite mercy extended to them, I feel rather undeserving.

C.S. Lewis goes on to say: “The process of surrender…means unlearning all of the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.”

It is understood that we are all “works in progress.” That we are living because Jesus died on the cross to cancel our debt so we may live fruitful lives of Him and know him and grow to live life full of Him and for Him. I tend to struggle with giving up control, fully surrendering, and pressing wholly and fully into God. Each day I pray that the Lord draws me nearer to Him and that he may stir up my heart so that I may long to know him more. It is time time that I start taking my own advice. It’s time to grab the reins, so that I may give myself up to His personality and in turn start having a real personality of my own.

C.S. Lewis ends with the idea of repentance and the realization that no one likes it. He describes repentance as being more than “eating humble pie.” He said, “Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person–and he would not need it.”

Perfection is an unattainable goal that I try and reach all too often. It is something that we were not meant to attain. I must get out of that way of thinking and start actively seeking to know God and start changing my heart to mirror his. Then and only then will I truly know the true meaning of eternal peace. It is time to start peeling away the unauthentic layers and begin to press into Him for answers and truths. This task has not proved to be easy, but I truly believe that when I fully begin to know God and his heart, I will then and only then begin to live a fruitful life full of Him instead of me.

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