Losing Control After Surrendering to Jesus: Trial or Temptation?

Surrendering to Jesus and losing control: trial or assault?

In the midst of Holy Week, an anonymous confession has raised an uncomfortable question: since I surrendered to Him, I feel I have lost control. The phrase, repeated in various spiritual circles on the internet, condenses a distress that spans centuries of Christian tradition. Mystics called it the 'dark night of the soul'; theologians, the 'purgative stage'; psychologists, the dissolution of the ego. But for those experiencing it firsthand, the doubt is more prosaic: is God forcefully restructuring my life, or has the devil found a loophole?

Loss of control as a mystical experience

The feeling of losing control is not new in the spiritual path. St. John of the Cross precisely describes this moment when the soul is left in darkness just when it believed it was closest to God. In the analysis of this crisis, St. Bonaventure's 'Itinerary of the Soul towards God' is cited to support the idea that suffering is part of the ascent. 'The path to God is not easy and depends not only on you,' it warns. Grace is necessary, and those seeking answers only in knowledge remain halfway through the journey.

Some, using a more playful metaphor, compare spiritual life to a video game on high difficulty: the early levels are easy, but as you advance, resistance hardens. There comes a point where it is scary to advance because you do not know what trial comes next. This feeling of being 'played' by a higher power—God, the devil, or whatever—unites believers and skeptics in the same perplexity: why does the one pulling the strings want the agony to prolong?

Eucharistic adoration as a resource

Amidst the confusion, the most circulated advice is to go to Adoration. Eucharistic Adoration consists of praying before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. It is an act of faith and devotion in which the real presence of Jesus Christ under the species of bread is recognized. 'In almost every city there are chapels of Eucharistic adoration,' it is recalled. In moments of extreme weakness, this practice is described as having 'maximum efficacy' to regain firmness and inner order.

The recommendation is not free of irony. Some point out that 'when you adore much, you also get gilded yourself,' a wordplay that underscores the beneficial effect of the rite, though without abandoning underlying skepticism. Others clarify that the Virgin also intercedes, but that one should visit her and the King not only with good intentions, but with physical presence. Be that as it may, adoration has become the practical refuge for those who find no rational explanation for their crisis.

Apocalypse as an interpretive framework

What started as a personal doubt has ended up connecting with the great eschatological narrative. References to Iran, war, and their effects on fertilizers and hunger have led some to wonder if we are not living in the 'final times.' Identifying the 'beast of the white horse' with well-known political figures—Trump and Jared Kushner are explicitly mentioned—is part of an interpretive current that gains audience in times of crisis. War would be, in this reading, the trigger for the prophesied hunger.

This is not new in the Oooo-Christian tradition: every generation has seen the signs of the end in its wars. But the insistence on this reading during Holy Week gives it a particular depth. Facing the individual spiritual explanation, this discourse offers a comfort of cosmic scale: personal suffering would not be a divine whim, but the contraction before the birth of a new world.

Between faith and skepticism

Positions have moved along an arc from serene acceptance to radical skepticism. Those defending divine trial argue that God places resistance to measure commitment; if overcome, the strength unreachable a priori arrives. In contrast, the more cautious remember that fervently believing in something does not make it true, and that history is full of convictions that turned out to be monstrous.

There is also a third path, inspired by Jungian psychology: the dissolution of the ego prior to a higher integration. This reading, which does not deny transcendence but translates it into terms of inner growth, has served as a bridge between opposite poles. 'We are all children of God,' it is concluded from the believer's side, but the skeptic replies that the problem is precisely knowing what such a father can do, seeing what some fathers do with their children in this world created by him.

The balance of forces ultimately remains where it started: those who have surrendered to Christ end up grateful and affirming that 'incarnate God who died on the cross and rose again has no rival.' But the question about lost control remains without a closed answer. Perhaps, as happens on these paths, it is not so much finding it as learning to live with it.