The Prayer of Relinquishment

The Concept

The Prayer of Relinquishment is an ongoing process. A daily (even moment-by-moment!) sacrifice of our own will to the will of God. We are changed little by little by the daily crucifixion of our will. Once we have abandoned our own agendas and acknowledged our hopelessness, we are in a position to fully receive what the Father has for us in abundance. New graces emerge: joy at the success of others, freedom from the burden of having to get our own way. Deeper intimacy with God overflows from our deeper dependency on God.

Such surrender will involve inner struggle. Foster explains: “to applaud the will of God, to do the will of God, even to fight for the will of God is not difficult … until it comes at cross-purposes with our will. Then the lines are drawn, the debate begins, and the self-deception takes over.” But struggle is part of the process. Struggle acknowledges that we are not fatalistically resigned to God's superior power, but that God actually invites us into true dialog with him. His desire is that we accept his will out of our trust in his love and wisdom and goodness.

Relinquishment knows the burden of unanswered prayer, but lays down (even distrusts) our own desires in favor of complete submission to God's will and timing. In the Bible, we see model figures with this same struggle of wills. Abraham relinquishes his son, Paul his desire to be free of his “thorn in the flesh,” and Jesus relinquishes his right to life in the garden of Gethsemane.

Sometimes, as with Isaac, God asks us to relinquish something, then gives it back to us. But this is not always the case. Still, what we relinquish, we can relinquish with the assurance of hope. Crucifixion always has resurrection tied to it. By default, “we hold on so tightly to the good that we do know that we cannot receive the greater good that we do not know." But we have to release our tiny vision in order to experience God's complete picture.

In formal practice, this prayer can be asking the Holy Spirit to apply relinquishment to the specifics of your day, asking the Father to make his will our consuming concern, asking Jesus to specify the areas of your heart that need to be laid at his feet. All day, “wait quietly, listen carefully, obey immediately.” The end result of relinquishment (certainly not the process) is a restful abiding in the Lord, a settled peace in the certainty of his control.

The Experience

At first I thought this would be an easy exercise. I have had spontaneous moments of relinquishment in my walk with God, and each stands out as an altar moment when I look back. I thought I would write about those, but instead I felt the Lord asking me to pray it now, and I protested. For almost a week, I kept putting it off, making excuses, literally resisting entering into a position of relinquishment.

I learned from that very resistance why this prayer needs to be a daily attitude. I am not talking about liturgically entering into “I surrender x, I surrender y, etc.” as a daily recitation, for then that very powerful exercise loses its punch. But certainly, when you feel that rebel flag going up at the knowledge of God's will, you best hit the deck!

I realized the truth in the prayer Foster put at the end of this chapter:

Oh, Lord, how to I let go when I'm so unsure of things? I'm unsure of your will, and I'm unsure of myself. … That really isn’t' the problem at all, is it? The truth of the matter is I hate the very idea of letting go. I really want to be in control. No, I need to be in control. I am afraid to give up control. Heal my fear, Lord.

So yesterday I knelt on the floor and approached a very intentional prayer of surrender. Once I made the choice to do so, my heart opened, words just flowed, and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of freedom. For me, the struggle was the choice, not the execution. I surrendered specific things in my life and named him Lord over them. I surrendered my desires for productivity and named him Lord of my schedule. I surrendered anxiousness over lost family members and named him Lord of the gospel. I surrendered my self-righteous excuses and named him Lord over my salvation. I surrendered the prayer itself, and named him the Truth behind the words.

Such a prayer is cleansing. It is deliverance, not from oppressive spirits or forces, but from idols I have set up in my heart and deliverance from the constraints of my own mind that keep me from true life and true intimacy with Abba, Father.