True surrender is not a defeat. It is a conscious choice. But before it can transform your heart, it demands a highly specific spiritual posture. Picture sitting with open, empty hands, ready to be washed clean of the grime and consequence of our own efforts - poised to receive. Yet this practice goes beyond the positioning of our hands and requires a posture of the heart, an adaptation of our very breath. It must become a rhythm akin to our physiology. Just as a clenched fist cannot be washed clean or receive what God provides, clenched lungs cannot sustain life.
Breathing is the most automatic function of our physiology. Yet we can control our breath if we choose to. The use of breathing techniques is a fundamental component of countless physical activities. Methods can assist with everything from performance and focus to relaxation and mental health to pain control. Every great athlete has their breathing techniques for different components of their sport, and volumes have been written on the subject. Common techniques are based on the ratio of how long you breathe in to how long you breathe out, whether you draw breath into the belly versus the chest, or pausing your breath during certain phases of the cycle.
One of the greatest challenges for early practitioners of martial arts, especially Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, is simply remembering to breathe. The tendency is remarkably strong for people to hold their breath under the stress of combat or competition. Experienced practitioners can often defeat younger, stronger, and more novice individuals by budgeting their exertion and maintaining their breath, matching it to their movement. Meanwhile, their competitor bears down with resistance and forgets to breathe. As he becomes increasingly air-hungry, he is robbed of his clarity and composure. He gradually begins to panic, further inhibiting his natural breathing until he runs out of breath and taps out. This is an invaluable lesson that the divine design of our bodies can teach us about our spiritual walk.
HOW ASPECTS OF DAILY LIFE SHOULD FLOW AS NATURALLY AS BREATHING
Consider how you approach aspects of life that feel like a limited commodity - time, money, resources, connections. Like breathing, these things should and will flow in and out of your life. In each moment, you can choose to resist or embrace this flow. If you see these things as commodities to accumulate and hoard, then you stagnate their movement. You must freely give if you expect to receive in any of these areas. The Bible speaks frequently about money, and Jesus cautions strongly against storing up earthly wealth. He rebukes those who fail to use what they have been given to bear fruit for God’s kingdom. This wisdom is equally critical to your attention and effort, to your mental and emotional energy, which can easily feel as tempting to hoard as any financial resource.
When you breathe in, you don’t hold onto a breath. You don’t take ownership of the breath. You take it in and let it go with gratitude. As the air in your lungs becomes exhausted of oxygen and filled with carbon dioxide, the byproduct of our metabolism, it can no longer serve us. You cannot take in fresh air until you exhale. It must be released.
Intellectually, we all understand this, yet the impulse exists to bear down and hold our breath under times of extreme physical stress. Just like with the inexperienced Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, the tendency to clutch or seize finances, time, material resources, or even your effort and energy will suffocate you and bring on the very thing you are trying to avoid. It stems from a scarcity mindset rather than trusting God to provide.
Giving is a vital part of spiritual fitness. Be intentional. Be generous. Give as you receive. Your money, your time, your attention, your love.
Many people struggle with Jesus’ teaching that a rich person cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Everyone in the developed world is rich beyond imagination compared to the third world or certainly anyone in Jesus’ time. The key insight is that it is not how much stuff you have - it’s not how much money is in your bank account that makes you rich in this context. It’s whether you take personal ownership of that money rather than recognize that it is all God’s.
Adopt the mindset that you have no money or possessions of your own. You are a steward of the resources that He has honored you with for the moment. Then, when God calls you to give, you can do it without hesitation, because you recognize that it isn’t yours anyway. God can decide what to do with His resources. This is why “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” [Matthew 19:24] I cannot be rich. I own nothing. It is all His.
SURRENDER IN EVERY AREA OF YOUR LIFE
Extend this principle of divine stewardship to every aspect of your life. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no man. Every minute of life you have is a gift from God. Even my children are really God’s children. I lay them in His hands and am honored to try my best to emulate His role as a heavenly father when I serve as their father on earth. My heart, my mind, my soul are His. One of the most powerful things you can do in cultivating spiritual fitness is to surrender them all to Him, just as you release the breath from your lungs.
If you are truly on the verge of surrendering yourself, of giving up to Him who you are at your core, it will almost certainly feel scary for a moment. The exercise of surrendering your very mind forces you to ask yourself, “Do I trust Him with my mind?” It forces you to recognize that He is, by definition, only good and only love. He will do you no wrong, and every aspect of your life is infinitely better off in His hands than if you take ownership and try to manage these things on your own. The decision to surrender at this level solidifies your belief in who God is and fortifies your faith in a way almost nothing else can.
Ironically and perfectly, this selfless approach becomes one of the most self-serving things you can do for you and your family. As you open up the pipeline of giving, you will receive. As you demonstrate to God that you can be trusted to faithfully steward the resources He provides you, the more you will be trusted with. This is a biblical promise.
Consider that this is not meant to be punitive, but simply a cautionary reminder about the nature of giving and receiving, and the unavoidable consequence of hoarding and clutching - of forgetting to breathe.
BREATHING TECHNIQUE
The more you surrender to God every aspect of your life and who you are, the better every aspect of your life becomes as it is imbued with the Holy Spirit and managed by Him. Make willful surrender a part of your daily spiritual training protocol.
Survey yourself for anything you are clutching – internally within, a part of your family, hopes and dreams, a practical aspect of your life, or anything else. Sit with your hands open, palms up, and visualize yourself releasing it to Him. See Him taking it from you as you exhale in trust. Likewise, you are positioned to receive.
Be committed to the challenging obedience required next, and get ready for your life to accelerate in a thrilling new direction as you breathe in with expectation and exhilaration.
