I was hanging mostly upside down in the cockpit, just about to point the upside-down F-15 toward earth and ambush another jet streaking by below. Then the flight surgeon called. (Flight surgeons are military aviation doctors.)
Getting a call from the flight surgeon while you’re jetting around is not good…
This would be my last flight in the F-15. On final approach I was an instructor pilot in the world’s premier combat jet. When the tires touched down, I was medically grounded—my flying career was over.
When I was grounded, I grieved losing my dream job, and I fretted about my family. Months later, with a one-year-old baby, a family to feed, not much in savings and no job prospects as my military career came to an end, I decided maybe God needed my help with a plan. My ingenious plan? Un-surrender—take my life back, just long enough to get things sorted out, then get back to God, completely surrendered again.
Maybe you’ve been there. That moment where you realize there’s a big fork in the road ahead and you don’t want to take “the road less travelled”.
Go your way and you are in charge, getting things done, stopping the slow drip, or grabbing the big opportunity. The other road? Waiting on God. That can be scary in our modern world. Americans are culturally wired to take-charge, DIY, pull up on those boot straps.
Following the Most-High God in truly tempting, tough, seductive or scary times? I can do a lot of second-guessing. (See King Uzziah’s “prospering as long as he sought the Lord” at 2 Chronicles 26) Which brings us to the uniquely biblical concept of surrender.
Disciple = Christian = Unconditional Surrender
Faced with economic pressures and riddled with anxiety, I wanted to take things in to my own hands for a bit. God was probably tied up elsewhere, and somebody needed to fix this obviously difficult situation on my terms and timing. The counterintuitive counsel of Scripture is to wait, as in keep being shrewd, active and dependent on God, but not un-surrendering. In other words, stay in God’s wake—because he drives the outcomes for his people. (i.e. Jeremiah 10:23 and Philippians 1:27)
But you see, I wanted to switch from the unlimited minutes plan of God controlling my life, and pick up a burner deal, where I could roam off the Sovereignty network and speed-dial a paying job. But just until I got a job. Then I’d re-surrender, come back. God could have my undivided attention once I got the job.
“Are you implying I should just pause my efforts—and God does the work?” you might ask. Not at all. Our obligation is to always do our best in circumstances, yet surrendered, not trying to force my specific outcome. The idea is do your best, stay true, active, dependent on God, and he drives the outcome. (See Colossians 3:17; 2 Timothy 2:15) God owns the outcome—with the distinct possibility things might not go our way. (2 Samuel 10:12;) Expecting God to make all things work to the good (Romans 8:28) is the result of unconditionally surrendered faith. Expecting God to do it on my timeline and my outcome is not patient, not dependent, not surrendered. Western culture recoils at unconditional surrender.
To follow is to be actively engaged, lives in robust pursuit of Christ in our vocational calling, and in our family and community circumstances. Each believer is uniquely called to some pursuit. If the pursuit takes us through tough times that we have no control over, disciples, even then, work excellently, and stay in pursuit. This is not to suggest seeking passivity or martyrdom, but it does mean staying surrendered to his outcomes as options narrow and circumstances press in. I was trying to go rogue from following in my situation. Surely God wouldn’t intend me to face difficulties, right?
Actually, he does. (Romans 5:3-5)
A lot of us in the West have been conditioned to believe that in exchange for putting [most] “things” in his hands Jesus saves us and we get a happy life. If “things” go awry? Well, we ought to take the lead awhile—set things right, then give things back to him.
To want to opt-out of a surrendered life as pressures or opportunities mount is intuitively normal.
Here the idea of following Christ gets even more interesting—the disciple as a “doulos”.
Disciple = Doulos
Jesus introduced us to our new role as believers: a doulos. (Luke 17:10; John 12:26)
The role of a doulos has been watered down in much of Western Christianity. A doulos is a bondservant, surrendered unconditionally, indentured for a debt he’s unable to pay back. (Romans 12.1 and Galatians 2.20 for example).
Becoming a doulos is a surrender of entitlements (Luke 14:33), surrender to a life sentence of following without turning back (Luke 9:62), surrender with no negotiating, no vacation, no retirement. Even in the tough times.
Western culture values independence. I have lived all my adult life awash in the idea of me conquering what threatens me, and me finding my strength within me.
The idea of a disciple, as a doulos, going through radical identity reconfiguration in pursuit of Jesus is just not part of our cultural ethos. Yet our new identity as a bondservant demands we live in moment-by-moment surrender to Christ (Matthew 16:24), even when peer pressure and personal circumstances rail against it.
Christ’s call to surrender, to be a bondservant is, ironically, the true hope for freedom. Freedom from our anxieties, oppression, slavery, fears and injustices. (Matthew 11:28; John 10:10) That kind of grounding is wonderful, actually.
“…our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us…” 2 Kings 22:13 [NASB]
Dennis Allen and his wife Karen live in the Washington DC area and are members of Reston Presbyterian Church. Dennis is the Author of “The Disciple Dilemma” and works as a CEO, specializing in corporate turnarounds.