surrender Archives - Gina Brenna Butz

Leaning into Mystery

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 5, 2020
Post category:expectations faith

Last summer at a spiritual retreat, the question was posed, “How do you feel about the idea of mystery?”

The woman next to me took the words out of my mouth, “I like the idea of mystery, just not as it applies to me.”

I’ll have what she’s having.

While there’s something about mystery that intrigues and invites us, leaning into mystery can be frightening. It’s unknown, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

And God is mysterious.

Pondering the idea that there is so much about Him that is beyond our comprehension, that He is a being unbound by our limitations, is exciting. It’s an invitation to experience awe, wonder, the miraculous.

That’s what I like about the idea of mystery. It’s humbling in a way that frees us. We don’t have to know everything-we can trust what is simply beyond us.

But leaning into that means letting go of whatever modicum of control we might think we have. It calls us to surrender to something we can’t grasp, something greater than we can imagine. We have to submit to a God whose ways are often unpredictable and incomprehensible. We cannot shape Him in our own image anymore.

My friend Catherine McNeil, in her new book, All Shall Be Well, says, “We’re dying to leave the mystery behind for an idol, to form God, life, and the future into something that makes sense . . . sometimes we just can’t handle the wildness of it all.”

Like I said, less appealing when it applies to my own life.

But everything about God screams mystery.

He says Himself that His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours. Would any of us have written the redemption story the way He has? Would we lead people to wander in a desert for 40 years or make predictions of a Messiah 400 years before His birth, or send that promise in the form of an infant?

But think of what all that mysterious work has given us. Would I substitute my salvation for a knowable, predictable god who does exactly what I ask? When I balk at mystery, what I think I’m really doing is thinking somehow that my version of the story would be better.

It never is.

Leaning into mystery is contingent on a dogged faith in the love of God for us. To believe that, as C.S. Lewis said with regard to his Christ figure Aslan, “Of course he isn’t safe. But he is good.”

I can have a safe God or a good one. I will not allow myself to be caught up in mystery if I’m not convinced that the Mystery is relentlessly committed to loving goodness toward me.

2019 was a mysterious year in many ways. I didn’t understand what God was doing with my health. I wondered how this book would turn out in the end. We waited on answers to prayer, wondering what on earth He would do. How easy it is to want to grasp for that which is in our control rather than to surrender to His ways.

But as I look back on my life and the seasons where I most wondered, “What is He up to?” I see the fruit. I see that the ways He worked things really were better than I could have imagined. That gives me hope to keep leaning into the mystery of God.

This is the life of faith. We may not always understand Him, but we can trust Him.

Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

He Knows Your Hard

Do You Know What You’re Worth?

Learning to Relinquish Control

Post author:Gina B
Post published:August 8, 2019
Post category:dependence on God

During the 48 hours at our spiritual retreat this June, we were meant to disconnect completely from technology. But I was headed out to walk one morning, and I wanted to check the weather.

No matter that I’d checked it prior to arriving. What if it changed? What if the afternoon rain suddenly came in the morning? I didn’t want to be caught off guard.

In other words, I didn’t want to be out of control.

The Subtle Ways We Control

There was a time, not long ago, when I wouldn’t have been able to check the weather before going outside. What would I have done then? Maybe get caught in the rain. Maybe have been underdressed. Or overdressed.

But now all that’s over. That little weather app on my phone gives me a small measure of control over my life I didn’t have before. I can avoid looking foolish or being uncomfortable. Thanks, weather app!

Throughout those 48 hours of retreat, I saw more and more how control plays out in subtle ways in my life.

When I couldn’t look up a quote or person someone mentioned, I hated that I couldn’t control my ignorance.

If a book title I’d like to buy came up, I couldn’t exercise the agency to buy it on my time.

When our group was invited to sit in silence after sharing, I couldn’t manage their image of me by responding in an empathetic way.

That I like to control life is not a surprise to me. Remember the Little Miss books? I used to joke that mine would be called “Little Miss Control Freak.”

Starting to Let Go of Control

But God’s been working on me. Slowly prying my fingers off areas of my life, inviting me to relinquish my grip and let Him be God. Reminding me that I don’t really control what I think I do. As Anne Lamott says,

“It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what’s keeping things running right.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

So waking up to this still pervasive itch to control was a bit disappointing. Haven’t I grown out of this by now? But as I’ve said before, we’re all recovering from something.

And this: this felt a bit like God just found my secret stash of control in a back cupboard.

But in true God fashion, He opened that cupboard on the retreat with kindness and compassion, gentleness and patience. He opened it because He wants me to be free. That’s always why He shows us our sin. His kindness leads to repentance.

The desire to control is often what fuels anxious thoughts. Perhaps something in us realizes that as much as we would like to be the ones in charge, we know we aren’t. The distance between desire and reality is bound to cause fear.

The Freedom in Surrender

That is unless we surrender. Raise the white flag. Admit that despite our best efforts, we are not enough.

Surrender means a willingness to be caught in moments of foolishness. Ignorance. Discomfort.

But it also means freedom.

We’re freed from being the rulers of our little kingdoms, which, as I’ve said before, we’re terrible at. There’s something in surrender that allows us to breathe again and relinquish the burden of holding things together. We’re free to trust in the God who is capable.

And I’m finding that’s the key to surrender: resting in the fact that while I am wildly out of control of the world, God is not. We can rest in His wisdom, His power, and His love. In other words: God knows what is best for us, He can do what is best for us, and He always wants what is best for us.

The more we sit in those truths, the more our fingers relax. Our grip opens and whatever we hold so tightly to-our reputations, our security, our agency over life-can be released into His care. If we can’t believe in His ability to care for us, we will never open our hands.

The word “surrender” has become a breath prayer, one I say on my exhale when I sit in silence and all the cares of the world come flooding at me. When the temptation is to grab each one and do what I in my small power can do, He reminds me to keep my hands open, palms up, to both give and receive.

What We Don’t Have to Carry

I Don’t Need Rescuing (Except I Do)

The Fight Belongs to Him

Leaving Our Kingdoms Behind

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 11, 2019
Post category:faith growth identity

I heard once that Jesus talks about the kingdom of God more than anything else. More than love, or the resurrection, or peace. Why?

Recently, my mind has been fixed on the kingdom. Or rather, my kingdom vs The Kingdom.

I know that there exists a kingdom of my own making. You have one too. It’s in our nature, to build a world for ourselves, to find what Buechner calls, “our place in the sun.”

I also know that we need to leave our kingdoms behind.

I’ve been in a slow process of doing so for many years. God started it. He always does. We aren’t meant to live in our own self-made domains. He loves us too much to let us live there.

But what do I mean by this kingdom creating? I mean the systems we create to provide for ourselves, to protect us from pain, to find love and belonging.

Our kingdoms have rules and values, ways of operating. And unfortunately, they usually run counter to the uppercase Kingdom.

That’s where we get in trouble.

The Trouble With Our Kingdoms

See, in Gina’s kingdom, I take care of myself. I do a pretty good job of taking care of others too. I perform to, or even exceed, the expectations of others. My reward is admiration and recognition, which kind of feels like love.

If you bump up against my kingdom, you might feel the pressure to live up to those expectations too. If I’m too wrapped up in my world, it might be hard for me to notice if you’re doing ok-after all, I don’t expect others to pay attention to my emotional well-being either.

But in God’s Kingdom, there’s no taking care of self, because it is prideful. There, perfect love drives out the fear that He won’t show up for me. In His way of living, there is no striving, only resting, when it comes to finding worth. There aren’t expectations on performance, just a hope that we will live gladly and purposefully in light of His love.

The troubles we encounter in life often center around the places where we expect others, including God, to live by our kingdom rules.

If the banner of my little self-made land is performance, but your world is focused on everyone being positive and having fun, and someone else’s dominion is ruled by order and perfection, and on and on, well, you can see where we might all have trouble living in peace with one another. Because deep down, we all think our dominion is the right one and the best one.

After a while, they aren’t kingdoms anymore: they’re prisons.

And our kingdoms need to crumble.

Letting Our Kingdoms Crumble

Jesus talked about the Kingdom so much because He knew we would try to make our own, and they would be lousy places to live.

He knew we would resist living in that true place He offers, so He wanted to give us a solid picture of His vs ours. He won’t stop until we live there.

The good news is that we are citizens of a new Kingdom.

We have a choice. I believe it’s the choice Jesus was talking about when he said to take up our crosses daily and follow Him. Each day, we choose to walk away from our kingdoms, the rules and expectations we impose on ourselves and others, and to walk in a new way.

We stop believing God should act according to our kingdom rules and we surrender to the life-giving freedom of His.

To do so requires humility. It requires a willingness to believe that maybe our best efforts are simply that-our efforts-and maybe there’s another way to live. For our worlds to fall away, we have to surrender.

When we seek His kingdom first, He tells us that everything else falls into place. We can live in peace with our neighbors, because we’re all actually in the same dominion now, not warring against one another.

So we ask God, “Where am I still trying to make this kingdom work for me? Where am I not living by your way but my own?” And then we raise the white flag.

The good news, God is patient, and He is relentless. The Kingdom He has built for us is always there, waiting for us to lay down our defenses and rest in Him.

Do You Know Your Real Name?

Drop the Hot Dog: Learning to Feed on What Truly Satisfies

A Story of Two Houses

What We Don’t Have to Carry

Post author:Gina B
Post published:August 31, 2017
Post category:dependence on God peace

I woke up one morning recently, and in that space between sleeping and waking I had a clear picture in my head of a room. Scattered around the room were objects that represented aspects of my life that were causing me to worry.

It was right in the middle of a crazy week. Our kids had started school and I was trying to get back into my role at work, bringing a thousand minute decisions and needful things screaming for my attention.

The night before, as I reviewed my day, I had been aware of how those worries had occupied my thoughts and energy during the day. It occurred to me how much I had been holding onto them, rather than stopping to pray and release them to God. I determined that the next day would be one of peace. Surrender would be my course of action.

But as I woke up that morning and pictured that room, my eyes found those worries lying around me. I immediately felt a heaviness in my soul as I saw myself reaching to pick them up again, throw them over my shoulders, and trudge on. But as I leaned to take hold of one of these burdens, I heard God say,

“That is not yours to carry.”

There was in that instant a momentary sense of relief, and a reminder of my determination to stay in a place of peace this day. But in the next second, another worry popped up, whispering over my shoulder that surely I needed to carry it. As I turned in my mind to pick it up, again I heard His voice,

“That is not yours to carry.”

And then I breathed a sigh of surrender.

Sitting down that morning to pray, I thought of all those worries I was tempted to bear. I thought about this invitation from God to release my grip on them. They are good and important things that do require attention and care, but they are beyond my control. It’s best I admit that. That’s a good place to start.

So I wrote them all out one by one, writing a prayer of release for each detail. And then, I asked God to make me carefree.

I like that word-“care free.” To be free from care. Not that I stop caring what happens in our lives, but I stop being the carrier. I stop believing that without me at work, they will be forgotten and lost. I believe that the God who is stronger, wiser, bigger, and more powerful carries them for me.

That morning, a friend of mine posted 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.” I took a few minutes to read that verse in other translations, and I had to laugh when I opened The Message. It reads, “Live carefree before God; He is most careful with you.”

Full of care for us. Fully able to carry all those burdens that threaten to weigh us down with worry. Whatever is calling for you to pick it up and bear it today, don’t. Live care-free. Let Him carry it.

Don’t Forget to Breathe

Doubting in the Darkness

Let Go and Let Him Hold You

Running from God

Post author:Gina B
Post published:June 21, 2017
Post category:dependence on God faith trials

“What would make you run from God?”

A pastor asked us this question one Sunday as he began a series on the person of Jonah, the poster prophet for running from God.

The pastor suggested we might be tempted to run from a calling to another country, maybe one where westerners aren’t welcome. I found myself surprised that a specific location hadn’t even crossed my mind.

No, for me it’s not “please don’t call me to that place.” My “places” are more internal. Maybe I’m not alone.

We are, at the core, self-centered people, which is the heart of the book of Jonah. God was calling him not just to a place, but to a surrender of the heart. That, maybe more than Nineveh, was the place he didn’t want to go.

So he ran toward Tarshish. Not sure what made Tarshish so appealing. Me, I run too, but in smaller, less obvious ways (because I don’t know how to get to Tarshish).

I run by staying busy, too busy to reflect on my heart, too busy to hear from God.

I run until I feel I’ve given enough, done enough, been enough.

I run from insignificance, from feeling small or forgotten.

I run from silence, where I might encounter emotions or truth I don’t want to own.

I run from being exposed to God, or more aware of my sin, is not a place I want to be.

All places where He is calling me to surrender, to let go of what I cling to that I think is life.

I want Him to call me somewhere else, some place where I look good and successful and admirable, and I don’t have to own the mess inside.

God calls us to places of surrender in order to do a deeper work in us. For Jonah, it was a big fish for three days. I can’t say how grateful I am that God has never felt He needed to throw me in a whale to get my attention.

For me, it’s places of unanswered prayer, unexpected disappointment, unmet desire, loneliness, trials. Those are places we would rather not be, but they are the places where God can bring us to the surrender that needs to happen for us to go deeper in Christ and further in mission.

This was a good reminder for me, to ask myself whether I am willing to sit in the places where He takes me, rather than trying to scramble out to a more pleasant existence. I need to surrender to His work within me.

What about you? Are you running from Him, or are you surrendering to His work?

Lean In

Why God Won’t Just Make It Easier

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Related posts:

The Subtle Ways We Control

Starting to Let Go of Control

The Freedom in Surrender

The Trouble With Our Kingdoms

Letting Our Kingdoms Crumble