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Japanese A short prayer of surrender: “Lord, I give you my life today, with my plans, my fears and the people I love. Not my will, but yours, be done. Amen.” Three classic prayers of surrender are the Suscipe of St Ignatius, Charles de Foucauld’s Prayer of Abandonment and Fr Dolindo Ruotolo’s “Jesus, you take care of it.”
The Suscipe of St Ignatius: “Take, Lord, and receive”
Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder and first leader of the Jesuits, put this prayer in his Spiritual Exercises, a course of meditations that grew out of his own prayer at Manresa, in Spain, in 1522. It comes near the end, in the Contemplation to Gain Love (section 234), where a person who has thought over everything God has given is told to offer “everything that is mine, and myself with it.” Ignatius wrote in Spanish, and the prayer begins “Tomad, Señor, y recibid.” The name Suscipe comes from the first word of the Latin version, “Suscipe, Domine,” “Receive, Lord.” This is the English translation that Elder Mullan, a Jesuit, completed in 1909.
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will — all that I have and possess. Thou gavest it to me: to Thee, Lord, I return it! All is Thine, dispose of it according to all Thy will. Give me Thy love and grace, for this is enough for me.
St Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 234, translated by Elder Mullan
Other traditional prayers of surrender
A prayer from The Imitation of Christ
The Imitation of Christ, a book of devotion first issued anonymously in 1418 and signed by Thomas à Kempis in 1441, has a chapter on how to ask for anything. It tells the reader to say, “Lord, thou knowest what is best; let this or that be, according as Thou wilt,” and follows with a prayer headed “A Prayer to be Enabled to Do God’s Will Perfectly.” William Benham’s translation gives it this way.
Grant me Thy grace, most merciful Jesus, that it may be with me, and work in me, and persevere with me, even unto the end. Grant that I may ever desire and wish whatsoever is most pleasing and dear unto Thee. Let Thy will be mine, and let my will alway follow Thine, and entirely accord with it. May I choose and reject whatsoever Thou dost; yea, let it be impossible for me to choose or reject except according to Thy will.
Grant that I may die to all worldly things, and for Thy sake love to be despised and unknown in this world. Grant unto me, above all things that I can desire, to rest in Thee, and that in Thee my heart may be at peace. Thou art the true peace of the heart, Thou alone its rest; apart from Thee all things are hard and unquiet. In Thee alone, the supreme and eternal God, I will lay me down in peace and take my rest. Amen.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, chapter 15, translated by William Benham
A daily prayer of surrender from the Book of Common Prayer
The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer of 1928 includes this prayer in its morning prayers for families. It is written for a household; one person can say “I” and “my soul and my body.”
And since it is of thy mercy, O gracious Father, that another day is added to our lives; We here dedicate both our souls and our bodies to thee and thy service, in a sober, righteous, and godly life: in which resolution, do thou, O merciful God, confirm and strengthen us; that, as we grow in age, we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Book of Common Prayer (1928), Family Prayer, “Dedication of Soul and Body to God’s Service,” p. 588
“I Surrender All”
This hymn by Judson W. Van DeVenter, written in 1896 and sung to a tune by Winfield S. Weeden, has been printed in more than 400 hymnals. Its text is in the public domain. This is the first verse and the refrain.
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.Judson W. Van DeVenter, “I Surrender All” (1896)
Charles de Foucauld’s Prayer of Abandonment
Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916) was a French army officer and explorer who became a Trappist monk, then a priest living as a hermit in the Sahara. Pope Francis canonized him on 15 May 2022. The prayer that carries his name begins, in the usual English version, “Father, I abandon myself into your hands.” In French it is the “prière d’abandon,” and it begins “Mon Père, je m’abandonne à Vous.”
He did not write it as a prayer. The historian Antoine Chatelard traced it to a meditation Foucauld wrote in 1896, probably while he was a Trappist monk at Akbès in Syria, on Jesus’ last words in Luke’s Gospel: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Foucauld wrote that he wished those words could be the prayer “not only of our last moment, but of all our moments,” and then wrote out a long response of trust to the Father. In December 1940, Little Sister Magdeleine of Jesus and two of her first novices shortened that passage by cutting its repetitions so that they could pray it aloud together each day. The earliest printing of it as a prayer that Chatelard found is from 1946.
Fr Dolindo Ruotolo’s Surrender Novena: “Jesus, you take care of it”
Dolindo Ruotolo (1882–1970) was a priest in Naples, Italy. He has been declared a Servant of God, and his cause for beatification is under way. He is remembered for the short prayer “Gesù, pensaci tu,” “Jesus, you take care of it.”
His Surrender Novena is prayed over nine days. Each day’s reading is written as Jesus speaking to the person who prays, telling that person to stop worrying and leave everything to him. After each day’s reading the person repeats ten times: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!”
Short prayers of surrender for particular moments
At the start of each day
Lord, this day belongs to you before it belongs to me. I give you my work, my plans and every person I will meet. Where my will and yours pull in different directions, let yours win. Amen.
In a hard time
Father, I did not choose this, and I cannot see where it leads. I have asked you to take it away. If you do not, carry me through it. Your word says, “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee” (Psalm 55:22). I am casting it now. Amen.
When fear and worry will not stop
Jesus, my mind keeps running to everything that could go wrong. I name each fear to you now and put it in your hands. You told us to be “casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Take these cares, and give me enough peace to sleep tonight. Amen.
For letting go of control
Lord, I have held on to my own plans for my life: the job, the relationship, the place, the timetable. I open my hands and give them to you. Keep what comes from you and take away the rest, even if it hurts. Teach me to say, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:15). Amen.
While waiting for an answer
God, I have waited a long time, and I want an answer now. You know that “to every thing there is a season” (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and I do not know what season this is. Keep me from forcing a door you have closed, and keep me faithful in what I can do today. Amen.
For an old hurt
Lord, I still carry what was done to me, and I keep going over it. I cannot put it down by myself. I give you the memory and the anger. Heal what it broke in me, and make me able to forgive, “even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Amen.
For a sin I keep going back to
Jesus, I promised to stop, and I went back to it again. I give you this habit and the shame that comes with it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). I confess it now. Cleanse me, and show me the next step away from it. Amen.
For money and possessions
Father, everything I own came from you. I give you back my money, my home and my wish for more. Show me what to keep, what to give away and what to stop wanting. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). Amen.
For someone I love
Lord, I have tried to fix [name], and I cannot. I give [him or her] to you. Do what I cannot do, keep [him or her] safe, and show me what love asks of me now: to speak, to wait or to step back. Amen.
To serve others
Lord Jesus, you “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Mark 10:45). Take my time, my pride and my wish to be thanked. Show me who needs help today, and let me give it without keeping score. Amen.
To give your life to Jesus for the first time
Lord Jesus, I have run my own life, and I have done wrong. I believe that you died for my sins and rose again. I turn to you now. Forgive me, take my life and make me yours. Amen.
Churches teach different things about what should follow a prayer like this. A pastor or priest can explain what his or her church teaches about baptism and the next steps. There are more prayers for salvation for this moment.
Prayers of surrender in the Bible
The best-known prayer of surrender in the Bible is Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). He asked for what he wanted and then placed the answer in his Father’s hands. Matthew gives the same prayer as “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39).
On the cross, Jesus’ last words in Luke’s Gospel are “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). He was quoting Psalm 31:5, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit,” a psalm of David that asks God, “deliver me from the hand of mine enemies” (Psalm 31:15).
Mary’s answer to the angel who told her she would bear a son is a prayer of surrender in one line: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). When the prophet Agabus warned that Paul would be bound in Jerusalem, Paul’s friends begged him not to go. When he would not be persuaded, they said, “The will of the Lord be done” (Acts 21:14). Jesus taught every disciple to pray the same thing in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
Two Old Testament verses put the same trust into words: “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5), and “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
What does it mean to surrender to God?
To surrender to God is to give him the final say over your life: your plans, your possessions, your relationships and your future. Paul describes it as an offering: “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). The 1928 Book of Common Prayer echoes that verse in its Communion service, where the priest prays, “here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee” (p. 81).
Surrender is not done once and finished. Jesus told his followers, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That is why many prayers of surrender, like the 1928 Prayer Book’s morning dedication, are said every day, and why Foucauld wanted his words to be the prayer “of all our moments.”
Is surrendering to God the same as giving up?
No. Surrender hands the outcome to God. It does not stop a person from acting. In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “not my will, but thine” and then got up and went to meet the men who came to arrest him: “Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand” (Mark 14:42). When enemies threatened the builders of Jerusalem’s wall, Nehemiah wrote, “we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night” (Nehemiah 4:9). They prayed and kept guard.
James does not tell Christians to stop making plans. He tells them to hold their plans loosely: “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (James 4:15). A person who surrenders a job search to God still sends the applications, and a person who surrenders an illness to God still sees the doctor. Ignatius, who wrote the Suscipe, opens the contemplation in which it appears with the note that “love ought to be put more in deeds than in words.”
