I have heard many a Catholic radio preacher instruct us to surrender everything to God. They argue that it all belongs to God anyway so let go - surrender it back to Him.
They leave the impression that we wind up with nothing.
And they smugly claim this is a good thing.
They are not wrong but they are not right.
They are short sighted.
They do not see the complete picture.
They look at the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ. They do not look through them to the other side. They only see the torture and death we inflicted on the Son of God while He was human, alive, tender and vulnerable. If they only looked through the bloody wounds, they would see that, despite the evil we inflicted upon Him, His most sacred heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us. Buckets of blood spilled from the wounds we opened in His body with lash, thorns, nails and spear, but not a drop - not a drop - of His love for us.
"How do we persuade them - truly convince them - that we love them?" "Let them torture and kill us and let us continue to love them nonetheless". This is God's plan of salvation. This is the sweetness of paradise. This is what causes us to exclaim: 'Where do I sign up?' 'How do I enlist?' 'How do I join the kingdom of this God who loves me so much?'
We pushed love through the meat grinder and love survived.
They only see the Ouch! and not the Wow!.
It is irrational for us to unilaterally surrender ourselves to God. And God does not expect the irrational from us. In fact, the success of God's plan to rescue us depends on us acting rationally. God expects that our rationality will instruct us to flee the sourness of godlessness and seek the sweetness of paradise. Our rationality is an integral part of God's rescue plan.
It is wrong for these preachers to ask us to act irrationally.
God is not looking for unilateral and unconditional surrender from us. God is not General Grant and we are not General Lee and this is not Appomattox.
God wants us to make a deal. God is offering us a quid pro quo.
Surrender everything of ours to Him and God will surrender everything of theirs to us.
God is offering us a bargain.
And It is a good deal for us. It is a steal