The Wrestle to be Held in His Love

When we come into the place of love with the Father, He pours His love into us in a way we have never known before. But His love does more than fill us, it purifies us.

The love of God is so powerful that it exposes the true state of our hearts. It reveals our deepest needs, the areas we have tried to hide, the places we have covered with shame or self-protection. His love uncovers not to condemn, but to consume. He longs for us to be wholly shaped and moulded by His heart.

For that to happen, His love must outwork what is hidden, shaking loose what is buried, refining what is still entangled, even the parts of us hidden from ourselves. As John wrote, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16). To live in His love means allowing Him to bring everything into the light.

As these places rise to the surface, His love also shows us the ways we have tried to push them back down, through distraction, denial, or striving. His love refuses to let them remain in the dark. He brings everything to light, not to overwhelm us, but so that He can meet it with Himself. And as we press into Him, His love presses even deeper into us.

For me, this has been a process of deep wrestle. How do I step into the place where I am fully letting go of anything I can do for myself? How do I come to the point where I admit: I can no longer protect myself. I can no longer control the outcome. I can no longer contribute to saving myself.

On one hand, this thought is absolutely terrifying. On the other hand, it sounds almost too good to be true, to let go completely and rest in the arms of the Father. And this is the wrestle. I have never known how to be anything other than on guard. I have never known what it is to live without control. Every part of me has been trained to manage, to plan, to protect, to anticipate. To let go of that feels like death.

This is not to say the Lord has not already done a deep work in me in these areas. He has. But when I search my heart, I still hear the loudest voice of all: fear. Fear whispers, if you trust more, you will be hurt, betrayed, rejected, abandoned. Fear is loud. Fear is convincing. Fear uses the echoes of past wounds as evidence to build its case. Fear tells me that letting go is dangerous, that surrender is unsafe, that exposure will only bring pain.

Yet I am learning that I do not need to let fear stand in the way of coming closer to the Father. As I step into the place of boldness He gives, I begin to see fear for what it truly is, nothing more than a wisp, a shadow without substance. It has no authority, no weight, no permanence. It postures itself as a giant, but it evaporates when exposed to the light of His love. As I allow myself to sink deeper into the Father’s embrace, I discover the truth of scripture: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18). His love deals with what I cannot.

There is no judgment left for me to fear, because Jesus has already borne it all. The cross has settled it forever. Where judgment once loomed, love now reigns. And this is surrender.

Surrender is not about confronting fear directly, nor is it about mustering strength to fight harder. Surrender is about yielding to love. It is about choosing to believe that the Father is trustworthy even when fear spreads its lies through my heart.

Surrender is not something I can make happen through effort. I cannot do surrender. I cannot force it. I cannot measure it. It is not a task on my list. Surrender is giving up the fight and allowing the Father to love me. It is opening my hands instead of clenching my fists. It is laying down my weapons and ceasing the inner battle to control outcomes. It is the radical choice to let go, not into nothingness, but into Someone.

But surrender is not only about fear. It is also about letting go of the false comforts I have leaned on. We all have them, patterns, habits, escapes, or even good things twisted into substitutes for His love. The answer is not to try harder to rid myself of them. The Father has never asked me to fight my way free. Instead, the way of surrender is to trust His love to outwork itself in me.

When my heart is washed in His love, the counterfeits begin to lose their value. They stop bringing the illusion of comfort. They cease to soothe the turmoil within because they were never the real thing. The counterfeit cannot stand in the presence of the authentic.

Paul described this beautifully when he said, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7–8, NLT). As His love takes up residence in my heart, false comforts fall away, not by force, but because they pale in comparison to the real thing.

Surrender is inviting Jesus into the hidden places He reveals. It is trusting Him at a deeper level, again and again. And as I stop resisting His love, because yes, it can feel terrifying to be loved so completely, He does the work in me.

There is something almost unbearable about having our whole heart exposed before Him. Every hidden corner, every broken desire, every false comfort laid bare. Nothing covered. Nothing disguised. To stand before the One whose eyes see through every defense, and still choose to stay.

And it is not only the obvious things that come to the surface, but everything we have tried to keep hidden our whole lives. It is the admission that I need love when I have been told I must be strong. It is confessing that I cannot do this by myself when I have lived convinced that survival depended on me. It is the raw truth that my grief is heavy, that my pain weighs deep, that my needs are real, when I have spent years denying even to myself that they existed. To stand before God with the honesty of need, when I was never allowed to have needs, let alone see them met, feels almost impossible.

And for some, there is an even deeper wrestle: learning that love is safe when it has been used as a weapon against you. When “love” has been the word spoken while harm was done, or the excuse used to control and diminish, trusting in true love feels dangerous. It feels like stepping into fire. Yet it is only in the fire of His love that the false is burned away, and the real can finally be known.

And yet this is what His love calls me into. Exposure is terrifying because it removes every shield, every mask, every false source of strength. But it is also where freedom begins. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).

This could undo us completely, yet the very next verses remind us that Jesus is our merciful High Priest, who knows our weakness. “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess… Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14, 16).

This is terrifying, and yet it is also the very place where His love transforms us. For even as everything is exposed, we find that He does not turn away. Instead, He covers us with mercy, wraps us in His presence, and assures us that we are His beloved.

Surrender is not about holding on tighter. It is about being held. It is being seen in the fullness of my mess and still embraced by the Father. It is sinking into His arms and discovering rest for my soul at a depth I never thought possible. As Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

This is the wrestle of surrender in the Father’s love. It is terrifying. It is costly. It feels impossible. And yet it is the very doorway into the deepest rest our hearts were made for.