Living surrendered.
It’s one of those phrases we hear in Christian circles. It sounds beautiful. Peaceful. Like something we should all be doing.
But here’s the thing we don’t talk about enough. Living surrendered is hard. Especially when it comes to business decisions.
We’ve talked about this between us many times. It’s not this easy work to do.
It’s easy to say we’re surrendered to God when things are going well. When the launches work, when the money comes in, when we have energy and margin and everything feels under control.
But what about the days when nothing is working? When you’re behind on everything? When your capacity has shifted but your expectations haven’t?
That’s where surrender gets real.
Surrender Starts With Honesty
Here’s what we’ve learned. Living surrendered doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine.
We’re really good in this society about minimizing and ignoring things. We think if we just keep going, if we just push through, our faith will somehow carry us without us having to actually deal with reality.
We’ve seen this play out. We paste a smile on our face. We say “Jesus is good” because He is. And then we just keep functioning like the giant elephant in the room isn’t standing right there.
But that’s not surrender. That’s denial.
Living surrendered actually means the opposite. It means we recognize the elephant in the room. We name it. And we say, “Jesus, this elephant is too big for me. Can you please help me? I don’t even know how to navigate this.”
That’s surrender. It’s admitting we can’t do it on our own.
For those of us who are structured and disciplined and used to getting things done, that is a tough thing to get through. We know this firsthand. Discipline makes us feel like we can do it on our own sometimes. And it’s not true.
We were not meant to do it all on our own.
What Living Surrendered Looked Like When Sleep Felt Impossible
Let’s get practical about what this actually looks like. One of us went through a season that captures this perfectly.
A few years ago, during a pregnancy, insomnia hit hard and didn’t let up. We’re talking twenty minutes of sleep some nights. Twenty minutes.
And there were still multiple businesses to run. A membership to manage. Blog posts to write. Emails to schedule. Customer service to handle. Products to design.
The first instinct was to keep functioning like the insomnia wasn’t there. Keep doing the same things. Pretend it wasn’t happening.
It didn’t work. At all.
Living surrendered looked different. It looked like admitting we couldn’t operate the same way anymore. It looked like asking for help.
It looked like planning in smaller chunks instead of mapping out entire quarters. One of us learned to say, “Maybe don’t plan for a whole quarter. Maybe detail plan for this week, because we don’t know what’s happening.”
It looked like releasing the expectation that we could do it all.
It looked like saying, “I don’t know how to do this, Lord. Show me.”
How Living Surrendered Shows Up In Daily Decisions
For the other one of us, surrender often looks like stopping when she’s behind.
She’s a push-through person. At least she has been in the past. But one of the boundaries she’s set is stopping work even when she’s behind.
She learned to say, “I have all this to do, and I’m still going to take care of myself, because spinning out isn’t helping.”
She’s learned to recognize the signs early. When she’s nearing her edge, she feels anxious. She starts spinning.
She goes too fast. Her shoulders get tense. And instead of pushing harder, she stops. She pays attention. She asks God what He’s saying.
That’s the thing about surrender. It doesn’t look the same for everyone. But it always involves paying attention and responding instead of just pushing through.
What Surrender Might Look Like For You
So what does living surrendered mean in your business? From everything we’ve learned and experienced, it might be:
- Admitting you can’t take on that new client right now, even though the money would be nice
- Letting go of a launch timeline that’s stressing everyone out
- Asking your spouse or a friend for help with something you’ve been carrying alone
- Taking a real day off when you’re behind because you know pushing through won’t actually help
- Changing your plan when your body is telling you something’s off
- Saying no to something good because your capacity is different this season
- Admitting you’re exhausted and need to slow down
It’s not about doing less. It’s about paying attention and responding with care instead of force.
Surrender Is Not Passivity
This is really important to understand. Living surrendered doesn’t mean being passive.
It doesn’t mean giving up on your business or letting things fall apart. It doesn’t mean you stop working hard or caring about what you’re building.
It means operating from a place of attunement instead of a place of force.
This is a word we’ve come to love. Operating from a place of attunement with God, with our emotions, with our season, with our situations, with our experience of everything around us, with our businesses.
So that means attunement with God. Attunement with your emotions. Attunement with your season. Attunement with your actual capacity on any given day.
That’s what surrender makes possible.
Sabbath Is A Picture Of Living Surrendered
One of the best pictures of surrender is the Sabbath.
We love what Felicia Masonheimer says about this. People tell her, “It must be nice to have the space to take Sundays off.”
And her response is, “Neither do I. I Sabbath my Sunday. It is an act of trust. It is a choice to trust that, even though my to-do list is so stinking long and not ending anytime soon, I am going to trust the Lord that those things will get done when they can get done.”
That’s surrender. It’s not having margin naturally. It’s choosing trust anyway.
It’s saying, “God, this day is Yours. This business is Yours. These tasks are Yours. I’m going to rest because You designed me to, and I trust You with what doesn’t get done.”
What Happens When We Don’t Surrender
We’ve both been there. When we don’t surrender, we hold on tighter. We try to control everything. We push through when we should stop. We ignore the signs our bodies and emotions are sending us.
And eventually we burn out. Or we get bitter. Or we start resenting the very business we once loved.
Boundaries protect both you and the other person from your bitterness and burnout. The same is true with surrender. It protects us from the weight of carrying everything alone.
Living surrendered isn’t just spiritual language. It’s survival. It’s what keeps us from breaking.
Signs You Might Be Holding Too Tight
How do you know if you’re holding on too tight? Here are some signs we’ve noticed in our own lives:
- You’re spinning out, thinking about the same problem over and over
- You feel anxious every time you open your laptop
- You can’t sleep because you’re running through your to-do list
- You feel like everything depends on you
- The thought of releasing control feels terrifying
If any of that sounds familiar, it might be time to pause. To name the elephant. To say, “Jesus, this is too big for me.”
The Gift Of Noticing Capacity Changes
Here’s something we’re learning. Living surrendered actually makes space for the way God designed us.
Our capacity isn’t fixed. It shifts with our seasons. It shifts with our sleep. It shifts with stress, with relationships.
And if we’re living surrendered, if we’re paying attention instead of ignoring, we can notice those shifts early. We can adjust before we hit the wall.
We used to begrudge it when our capacity shifted. But we’re learning that when we embrace that, this is where we get soulful business.
When we begrudge our capacity shifts, we miss what God might be doing. We miss the invitation to slow down, to trust Him, to let go of something we were holding too tightly.
We miss the chance to operate at a human pace instead of a machine pace.
Surrender is what lets us be human. It’s what lets us admit we have limits. And that’s actually okay because we serve a God who doesn’t have any.
The Freedom In Letting Go
Here’s what we didn’t expect. Living surrendered actually feels lighter.
For so long we thought surrender meant losing control. Letting things fall apart. Being less responsible.
But it’s the opposite. Surrender is what frees us from the weight of pretending we can handle everything. It’s what lets us stop performing and start actually living.
When we surrender our business decisions to God, really surrender them and not just say we do, we stop carrying the weight alone.
We stop spinning out over every little thing. We stop berating ourselves for not being able to do it all. We start operating from a place of rest instead of striving.
And honestly the business decisions get better. The content we produce is so much better when it comes out of a rested, creative place. Our relationships are so much better when we’re taking care of ourselves.
A Simple Way To Start Living Surrendered Today
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I have no idea how to actually do this,” start small. Start with noticing.
What’s the elephant in your business right now? What are you pretending isn’t there? Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s resentment. Maybe it’s a capacity shift you’ve been ignoring.
Maybe it’s a decision you’ve been putting off because you’re afraid of what surrender might require. Name it. Just to yourself, just to God. Say, “This is too big for me. I don’t know how to navigate this.”
That’s the first step. That’s surrender.
And then pay attention. See what He does with it.
