Surrender: Bending My Will to His

Surrender is a continuous lesson to learn.

by Jennifer Greene-Sullivan

This weekend, the Father has flabbergasted me with new insights about my own growth. Sunday during and after church services, He pointed out to me that I still have places, situations, and parts of my life that I have been “hell bent not to turn over to Me.” He told me that I had to “bend my will to MINE.”

2024 was all about surrender for me. I wanted nothing more than to submit and to serve Him, and He began to prune away so many issues in my mind, in my cycles of thought, and in my situations. For example, He told me to put down my burden and to leave the teaching profession because it was time to do so. I obeyed, stepping into a new journey—working for and with my husband. As a wife, I have had to learn to submit to the authority of God and of my husband in new and often painful ways that I haven’t before now. I gave Him my children some time ago (as well as a plethora of other things), and I truly believed that I had surrendered all I had to my Heavenly Father.

Yet, here I am as of yesterday, with a list of “stuff” that Jesus referred to as “things I am hell bent not to give up.” Whoa. That knocked the wind out of my comfortable, spiritual sails.

Two things that He brought to my attention truly flabbergasted my sensibilities:

1. My marriage
2. My victim mentality

“What?!?” I yipped. I literally balked at Him because I thought I had already dealt with the victim mindset. I truly believed it had been “renewed,” “captured,” and “delivered.” But Jesus let me know that it is obvious to Him that I haven’t taken my hands off my marriage—because if I continue to complain like a pitiful wife, then I have still not relinquished my marriage to God’s care nor truly confronted the victim mentality.

This revelation is both painful and freeing. Painful because it exposes my lingering grip of control. Freeing because I know that God never reveals without a plan for healing. If He has shown me these areas, it means He is calling me deeper into surrender, into true freedom where I don’t just say I trust Him, but I actually live it.

Surrender to the Father and His will has so much to do with TRUST in ALL things—especially the painful, especially the difficult, and especially what I have worked the hardest to achieve. I am so grateful for His mercy and for His gentle correction because it humbles me and keeps me HONEST and open to GROWTH.

I am reminded of Jesus and His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed for the last time as a free man. There in the garden, Jesus found Himself alone (due to the sleep of His disciples) and at a pivotal moment where He, as man and as fully God, could have very well saved Himself and abandoned God’s plan for the redemption of mankind. Three times that very night in the garden, Jesus asked His Father to “let this cup pass from me” if it be His will. Three times, Jesus petitioned the Father, and three times, He could have given up, especially since the disciples couldn’t even remain vigilant in prayer that night. However, three times Jesus returned to prayer and to accept the will of His Father, even though it would end in His very torture and death.

He knew the end from the beginning in that moment, and Jesus bent His own will to survive this torment, and He surrendered to His Father’s plan of redemption no matter how much He must suffer because of it.

With such a grave example of surrender of will for me to learn from, how could I possibly still be disobedient to BEND?

So today, I choose to surrender again. To bend my will to His. To lay down my victim mindset. To release my marriage into His hands. To trust Him fully.

Because surrender is not a one-time event; it is a daily laying down, a continual choosing of His way over my own.

Father, I surrender.

A Prayer of Surrender

Heavenly Father,
I come before You today with an open heart, humbled by the truth You have revealed. You have shown me the places where I have clung too tightly, and the areas where my will has refused to bend to Yours. Lord, I acknowledge my resistance, my fears, and my stubbornness, and I lay them at Your feet.

Help me, Father, to truly surrender—not just in words but in action. Teach me to trust You in the difficult, in the painful, and in the things I have worked hardest to control. Give me the courage to release my grip on my marriage, my mindset, and every part of my life that I have kept from You.

I remember Jesus in Gethsemane, bending His will to Yours, surrendering fully even to suffering, for the sake of Your perfect plan. If He could surrender all, Lord, how can I not?

So today, I make this declaration:
I bend my will to Yours.
I lay down my need to control.
I release my marriage into Your hands.
I reject the victim mindset and embrace freedom.
I choose to trust You fully.

Holy Spirit, work within me. Prune what is not of You, reshape my heart, and refine me in Your presence. I want to walk in total surrender, fully yielded to Your perfect will.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

P.S. I used my marriage as an example of one instance of surrender that Jesus has brought to my attention. The others are not up for debate either, yet He has not cleared me to talk about them publicly. I started a list yesterday, and I have added to it today. The list will be a work in progress as this week continues.

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Scriptural References on Surrender

• Matthew 26:39-42 – “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
• Romans 12:1-2 – “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
• James 4:7 – “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
• Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
• Luke 9:23-24 – “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
• Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”