Common Mistakes About Surrender to God

A Fiery Word Turned Soft

The first misunderstanding is one of vocabulary. In common usage, “surrender” is a word of renunciation: one abandons a position, a post, a project, or an injured person on the road. “To leave in abandonment” means to neglect. The term therefore carries a connotation of passivity and even failure; and the modern ear spontaneously projects this meaning onto spiritual surrender, imagining it as a pious giving up, a devotional resignation before existence.

But the surrender spoken of in the Gospel and by spiritual masters is exactly the opposite of resignation: it is an act, perhaps the highest of all Christian life, by which the will freely commits itself to another Will that it knows to be infinitely loving. Dom Vital Lehodey, whose treatise Le Saint Abandon (1919) remains the classic reference on the subject, takes care to write this from the outset:

“Surrender is not idle waiting, a neglect of prudence, or lazy inertia. The soul retains its full activity for all that concerns the signified will of God.” — Dom Vital Lehodey, Le Saint Abandon^[6]

To confuse surrender as a virtue with surrender as resignation is the root error from which almost all others derive.

Three Competing Caricatures: The Lazy, the Resigned, the Presumptuous

The misunderstanding does not take a single form but three, which alternate. First, there is the lazy person, who hears in surrender permission to do nothing more: “God will provide” becomes an alibi for inaction. Then there is the resigned person, who takes surrender as a sad submission to fate: they endure everything, but without trust, as one accepts the inevitable. Finally, there is the presumptuous person, who turns surrender into blackmail of Providence: they neglect means, multiply imprudences, and demand that God compensate for their negligence by miracle.

These three figures have one thing in common: they have all forgotten that Christian surrender unfolds in two inseparable stages — do everything that depends on us, then peacefully accept everything that depends on God. The popular proverb knows this, which is no small theology: “Help yourself, and Heaven will help you.”

The Weight of a Heresy: The Condemned Quietism

If the Church has so clearly marked out this terrain, it is because a true heresy was born here: Quietism. In the 17th century, the Spanish priest Miguel de Molinos taught that perfection consists in “annihilating the powers of the soul”, in surrendering “totally without reserve” to God in order to “then remain like an inanimate body”^[7]. Pope Innocent XI condemned sixty-eight of his propositions by the constitution Coelestis Pastor in 1687^[8]. Twelve years later, a milder form — the “pure love” indifferent to one’s own salvation, defended by Fénelon — was in turn condemned by Innocent XII^[9].

This condemnation is not a mere historical curiosity: it outlines by contrast the true surrender. Everything Quietism affirmed — no longer acting, no longer asking, no longer struggling against temptations, no longer caring about one’s salvation — is precisely what authentic surrender is not. The common errors of today are, most often, nothing but spontaneous and unconscious Quietism. Here they are, one by one.

"To surrender is to do nothing and let God act in my place"

This is the chief error, the one that sums up all the others. Since God is all-powerful and cares for me, surrendering would mean withdrawing from action to let Him operate alone: the less I act, the more room I leave Him. The idea is appealing because it seems humble—is it not to disappear before God?—and because it is convenient: it sanctifies passivity.

This is precisely the proposition the Church condemned in Molinos: “To want to act actively is to offend God who wants to be the sole agent; and that is why one must surrender oneself totally and without reserve to Him, and then remain like an inanimate body.”^[10] The Catechism says exactly the opposite: the Christian’s prayer “recognizes how good He is,” but this surrender “does not commit us to any passivity.”^[11] Moreover, God “uses the cooperation of creatures” not out of weakness, “but out of the greatness and goodness of Almighty God”: He gives them “the dignity to act themselves, to be causes and principles one of another.”^[12] Man is called to become “a co-worker with God.”^[13]

“It does not commit us to any passivity (cf. 2 Th 3:6-13) but wants to free us from all fostered anxiety and worry. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2830^[14]

Bossuet—the very opponent of Fénelon—formulated it with definitive clarity against the Quietists of his time:

“The Christian’s surrender presupposes two foundations: one, to believe that God cares for us; and the other, that one must nevertheless act and watch; otherwise it would be tempting God.” — Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet^[15]

Surrender is not the opposite of action: it is its soul. One acts with all one’s strength, but without anxiety, because one entrusts the outcome to God.

"Surrender exempts from human means: doctor, work, prudence"

An active variant of the previous error. Since I surrender to Providence, I would no longer need ordinary means: praying for healing would exempt me from consulting a doctor, trusting God would exempt me from seeking work, relying on Him would exempt me from planning. The idea flatters a false purity of faith: to rely “only on God.” It can even claim a word of Jesus—the birds of the air who neither sow nor reap^[16].

But Scripture says this is tempting God. The Catechism defines this sin: “The act of tempting God consists in putting to the test, by word or deed, His goodness and omnipotence.”^[17]—exactly what the devil did by proposing to Jesus to throw Himself down from the temple, and which Jesus rejected: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”^[18] Voluntarily neglecting means while demanding a miracle is not trusting God: it is “wounding the respect and confidence we owe our Creator.” Lehodey is categorical: “We will never be exempted from following the rules of prudence […]. To surrender to God without doing on one’s part all that one can is cowardice and negligence.”^[19] Saint Francis de Sales illustrated this with the image of the Virgin going to the Temple “sometimes in the arms of her parents, sometimes on her little feet”: “divine goodness is willing to lead us on our way, but it also wants us to take our little steps.”^[20] As for the birds of the air, Jesus does not ask them to weave or reap; but He gave man “wisdom, foresight, and freedom,” and He wants him to use them.

“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” — Second Letter to the Thessalonians 3:10^[21]

Surrender does not eliminate secondary causes: it sanctifies them. The doctor, work, prudent saving, and thoughtful decision are themselves instruments of Providence—“divine providence also acts through the actions of creatures.”^[22] To surrender is to use means as if everything depended on them, and to expect the fruit as if everything depended on God.

"To surrender is to ask for nothing and desire nothing"

Here is a subtler error, because it has the appearance of the highest spirituality. Since God knows better than I what is good for me, asking Him for something would be trying to bend His will to mine; true surrender would therefore be to ask for nothing, desire nothing, to remain in pure indifference. One thinks this joins the “holy indifference” of Saint Francis de Sales or Saint Ignatius.

This is, word for word, Molinos’ error: “He who has surrendered to the will of God must ask nothing of God, for asking is an imperfection.”^[23]—a proposition condemned. For Jesus, who perfectly surrendered, never ceased to ask: “Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be full.”^[24] The very prayer He taught us, the Our Father, is a series of requests—“give us our bread,” “deliver us”—and the Catechism sees in it “this filial trust that cooperates with Providence.”^[25] Asking is not the opposite of surrender: it is its expression, provided it is always crowned with “thy will be done.”

As for the “holy indifference” of the great spiritual masters, it is a misunderstanding to invoke it here. It does not mean desiring nothing, but desiring — in the words of Saint Alphonsus — “only God and His good pleasure”^[26]: preferring in all things what God wills, even against one’s own taste. It is a summit of desire, not its extinction. For the saints’ own voice on this point, see What the Saints Say about Surrender to God.

"To surrender is to stop struggling against my sins and temptations"

A dangerous form of error, because it touches salvation. Since I entrust myself to God, the struggle against my faults would no longer be my concern: He will take me as I am, or change me when He wills; resisting temptations would even betray a lack of trust, as if I wanted to save myself by my own strength. Surrender then becomes a pillow of presumption.

The Church condemned this idea at its Quietist source: for Molinos, once free will is surrendered to God, “there is no longer any need to worry about temptations, and one should oppose them only with negative resistance.”^[27] True surrender does not lay down the weapons of spiritual combat: it takes them up with renewed energy, because it knows that “it is God who works in us both to will and to act.”^[28] To surrender to God is not to give up fighting: it is to fight relying on Him rather than on oneself. The fight against sin belongs to the signified will of God—that which He expressly commands us; neglecting it under the pretext of surrender is disobedience while believing oneself perfect.

“Everything that happens is the will of God — therefore God wills evil”

This error arises from a formidable confusion. One hears that nothing happens without the will of God; from this, it is concluded that everything that happens — including crime, illness, injustice, sin — is willed by God. Consequently, either God is accused of being the author of evil, or one surrenders to a fatalism in which good and evil are equal since “everything is the will of God.”

Here the most firm distinction of all doctrine is necessary. The Catechism states it without ambiguity: “God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.”^[29] God permits evil — He respects the freedom of His creatures — but He does not will it as He wills the good. Theology has always distinguished between the will of good pleasure (what God positively works or sends) and the permissive will (what He allows to happen without approving it). The sin of a murderer is not the will of God; what God wills is that I fight evil and that from the evil suffered, He may bring forth a greater good.

“The Almighty God, since He is supremely good, would never allow any evil to exist in His works if He were not powerful and good enough to bring good out of evil itself.” — Saint Augustine, Enchiridion, cited in the Catechism § 311^[30]

To surrender, then, is not to say “everything is good” — evil remains evil — but to believe that “all things work together for good for those who love God”^[31], because God, “in His all-powerful providence, can bring good even from the consequences of evil, even moral evil”^[32]. From the greatest evil ever committed, “the rejection and murder of the Son of God,” God brought forth “the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our Redemption” — and yet, the Catechism immediately adds, “evil does not thereby become good”^[33]. On this mystery of permitted evil, see the dossier The Response to Evil and Suffering.

“To surrender is to passively accept injustice and evil without fighting them”

From the previous confusion arises a disastrous practical consequence: if everything is the will of God, then everything must be accepted without change — injustice suffered, illness, oppression, the disorder of the world. Surrender would then become a moral abdication, a blessing given to evil in the name of divine submission. This is the objection that opponents of the faith often address to Christianity: that it lulls consciences to sleep.

The answer lies in the distinction of the two aspects of the divine will. The signified will — what God commands us, our duties according to our state in life, helping our neighbor, promoting justice, fighting evil — must be fulfilled with all our energy: it is “the stable and everyday law”^[34]. The will of good pleasure — what God permits and which we cannot change — must be accepted with peace. To surrender never means allowing evil to happen when it is within our power to prevent it: that would be sinning against charity and justice. It means fighting evil with all one’s strength according to what God commands, then entrusting to God, with confidence, what remains beyond our control. The doctor fights disease; the just person fights injustice; and both surrender regarding the outcome. Surrender is not an ally of evil: it is the calm energy of those who fight it without being consumed by anxiety over the result.

“Surrender destroys my freedom and responsibility”

This time a philosophical error. One imagines the will of God and human freedom as two rival forces: what one gains, the other loses. To surrender would then mean to erase oneself as a free subject, to become the inert instrument of a foreign will — in short, to dispossess oneself.

The Catechism reverses this false relationship: far from diminishing the creature, God’s action in it elevates it. “It is God who works in us both to will and to act. […] Far from diminishing the dignity of the creature, this truth elevates it.”^[35] God is not a rival cause among causes: He is the first cause who makes the secondary causes exist and act without supplanting them — like the author of a drama who does not supplant the freedom of his characters, but in a way infinitely deeper. The more I surrender to God, the more I become fully myself and fully free, for “to recognize this complete dependence on the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and trust”^[36]. Surrender does not alienate freedom: it fulfills it, by harmonizing it with the only Will that can will only our good.

"I am only abandoned if I feel peace"

This is the emotional error, perhaps the most persistent. One judges the quality of one’s surrender by what one feels: if I taste peace, if anxiety has disappeared, then I have truly surrendered; if I still tremble, if fear remains, then my surrender has failed. Surrender would be measured by the serenity experienced.

But surrender is an act of the will, not a feeling. The absolute model is Jesus at Gethsemane: he surrenders perfectly — “Not my will, but yours be done”^[37] — and yet he experiences “anguish” to the point that “his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground”^[38]. The purest surrender in history is accomplished amid sensitive distress, not in felt peace. Likewise, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus wrote as early as 1895, in Manuscript A, recounting her sister Céline's entry into Carmel:

“[...] it is surrender alone that guides me, I have no other compass! [...]” — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Manuscript A (1895)^[39]

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” — Gospel according to Saint Luke 22:42^[40]

One can therefore be fully surrendered amid inner turmoil, and taste a false peace without truly having entrusted oneself to God. Peace is often the fruit of surrender, but it is neither its measure nor its condition: it sometimes comes, sometimes waits, and surrender remains whole in waiting. To surrender is to will what God wills, even when all within us rebels.

"If I truly surrender, God will spare me trials"

Here the error takes on the colors of a bargain: surrender would be an all-risk insurance policy. If I trust enough, God will ward off illness, failure, bereavement; the trials that occur would prove that I have not surrendered enough. One expects trust to buy comfort.

But surrender is not protection from the Cross: it is its welcome. The Christ abandoned at Gethsemane was not exempted from the Passion — he embraced it. Job, the Old Testament model of surrender, loses everything and yet blesses: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”^[41] Surrender does not necessarily change events; it changes the one who passes through them. It does not promise a life without storms, but peace in the storm:

“He who surrenders to the divine will and finds good in all that the Lord does is like a man lifted above the clouds who sees storms raging beneath him without being touched or disturbed.” — Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Preparation for Death^[42]

Expecting surrender to remove suffering is preparing to reject it at the first hardship; expecting it as the grace to endure suffering without losing oneself is to enter into the freedom of the children of God.

"Surrender is a state acquired once and for all"

Sometimes surrender is imagined as a threshold crossed definitively: one day, in a great impulse, I surrendered — and that was done, acquired, behind me. From then on, one is surprised to still have to struggle against anxiety, and concludes that the initial surrender was an illusion.

Surrender is not a state but an act to be renewed, day after day, often hour after hour. Jesus did not pray “let your will be done” only once: he said it “a second time” at Gethsemane^[43], and his whole life was a continual Fiat up to the Cross — “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”^[44]. The human will, restless and anxious, must constantly refocus on God. This is why Caussade spoke of the “sacrament of the present moment”: each instant brings a new portion of divine will to welcome, and yesterday’s surrender does not exempt from today’s surrender^[45]. Far from being discouraging, this repeated character is liberating: it means that a surrender missed this morning can be resumed this evening, and no fall into anxiety is definitive.

"Surrender is for elite mystics, not for me"

The last error about the experience, and the most discouraging: surrender would be a summit reserved for great contemplatives, exceptional souls, beyond the reach of the ordinary Christian entangled in worries. One admires from afar the surrender of the saints as an inaccessible achievement.

Yet surrender is not a privilege of mystics: it is the way of all, and even, according to Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, the “little way” of the little ones. “For this I do not need to grow, on the contrary I must remain little”^[46], she writes: it is precisely weakness, powerlessness, smallness, that make surrender possible and necessary. Christ invites “all” his disciples to filial surrender^[47], and Saint Peter writes to entire communities, not to an elite: “cast all your anxieties on him”^[48]. Surrender does not presuppose extraordinary mystical states: it presupposes a childlike heart that trusts its Father. The overwhelmed father, the exhausted mother, the sick person, the anxious student are called to it as much as the monk. To believe surrender is reserved for a few is to deprive oneself of the only peace that truly holds.

One confusion that has become widespread in our time remains to be dispelled: the assimilation of Christian surrender to the “letting go” of personal development, mindfulness, or a vaguely Eastern wisdom of “going with the flow.” The words sound alike; the realities are opposed.

Contemporary “letting go” is most often immanent: it invites one to detach from tensions to regain inner balance, to accept “what is,” to make peace with the flow of existence. Its horizon is the peaceful self; its spring, a technique. It may contain a measure of natural wisdom — it is good to give up wanting to control everything — but it does not go beyond the self: one lets go for one’s own well-being, and no one, ultimately, receives the surrender.

Christian surrender, on the other hand, is theocentric and filial: one does not relax into a benevolent void, but places oneself into the hands of a personal “Father” who loves, who sees, who acts, and to whom one speaks. Its horizon is not the peace of the self but the will of Another; its spring is not a technique but faith, hope, and charity. Where letting go says “accept what is,” surrender says “thy will be done” — which presupposes Someone who wills, and who wills my good. The difference is not one of degree but of kind: one is psychological hygiene, the other a relationship of love. Likewise, surrender is neither fatalism (submission to a blind fate, “it was written”), nor stoic resignation (sad acceptance of the inevitable by strength of soul): these attitudes endure; surrender consents with trust, because it knows and loves the One to whom it gives itself.

The following table summarizes the main misunderstandings reviewed and their doctrinal correction.

Five neighboring attitudes resemble each other in outward gestures — all seem to “accept” — but differ radically in their inner root. Distinguishing them is the best protection against misunderstandings.

At the end of this clearing away, surrender regains its true face — and it is anything but resignation. It is the freest and most active act there is: the act by which a son, sure of his Father’s love, acts with all his strength in what depends on him and receives with peace what does not depend on him. It neither extinguishes desire, nor prayer, nor combat, nor freedom: it brings them to their summit by harmonizing them with the Will that can only will our good.

Its model is not a technique but a person: Christ at Gethsemane, surrendered even to the sweat of blood, and Mary at the Annunciation, whose “Fiat” commits her whole life. Between the passivity of the quietist and the agitation of the anxious, surrender traces the narrow and royal way: that of the child who, because he knows his Father is good, can undertake everything without fear.

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” — Gospel according to Saint Luke 23:46^[49]

To discover how this surrender is learned and cultivated concretely, see How to Grow in Surrender to God; to hear the living wisdom of the saints on this path, see What the Saints Say about Surrender to God.

• What the saints say about surrender to God — a selection: Gethsemane, Mary's Fiat, Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Ignatius, Saint Alphonsus, Caussade, Saint Thérèse, Saint Faustina, Charles de Foucauld, Dom Lehodey, Luisa Piccarreta.
• How to grow in surrender to God — a practical guide: nature, two components, concrete means, fruits.
• Common errors concerning trust — the sister virtue, its misunderstandings.
• How to grow in trust — trust, the root of surrender.
• The response to evil and suffering — why God permits evil without being its cause.

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