Why Surrender Comes Before Repentance

to make the decision. Are you in or are you out? Are you ready to surrender yourself completely to this relationship? Whatever that will mean for you. Meaning to say the surrender when I say I'm going to put myself in in God's care basically means wherever the chips are going to fall, I'm ready to go with it. I'm I'm I'm I'm terrified, but I have no choice at this point. I'm I'm just ready to go with it. And once that decision has been reached, well, now if I start dropping my defects of character, which are at this point synonymous with my personality, my my personality, which took decades of developing and curating, right? But if I drop all that and there's nothing left and I'm just the big zero or like in the also an expression in the 12 and 12 I think in the sixth step essay he says if I give up my character defects what will be left of me I'll be like I'll be like the hole in the donut I'll be like the hole in the donut right so yeah but that's what I'm ready for that's what I signed up for because I did the surrender first then I am ready to be left as nothing. And that's okay. And I'm comfortable being nothing. I'm okay with being nothing if that's what God wants for me. You see what I'm saying? While you're still trying to be a something and you're just trying to improve your somethingness and be a better something than you've been, you're not really going to be able to surrender your character defects. You're not going to let go of them. Not when push comes to shove. That's why the housekeeping steps can't come first. But if you do the surrender first and you're ready to just freef fall. You're just ready to whatever happens is going to happen and I'll meet the real me. Whatever that is, but at least for once in my life, I'll meet the real me. And if it's nothing like the curated version of myself that I've come to know, so be it. You know, I'm not I'm not beggars can't be choosers. I'm not I'm not picking over here. I'm I'm I'm surrendering. I'm surrendering. So once you've done that surrender, now you can do a real house cleaning. Okay. So that's the idea here that Roshashana is surrender. That's the beginning of the the the 10 days of repentance. You don't embark on the process of repentance, meaning stock taking inventory, admitting wrongs, until you've done the surrender. Because if you do it earlier, if you try to do the inventory before you've done the surrender, you're not even going to get an honest inventory. Even if you could get an honest inventory, you're not going to have the guts to get rid of the stuff that's not working. And even if you got rid of it, you you wouldn't even know how to face yourself after you dropped it and you would just pick it all back up again. Okay, so this is an important thing to understand. The order of Shana and Yamkipper is first surrender, then let's make the relationship work. Like my father's approach to marriage counseling, first let's make a decision. Are we saving the marriage? If we've made that decision, then any marriage can be saved. If we're not saving it, then it can't be saved. Binary decision. Are we in or are we out once that's been done? Yeah. Okay, fine. So, and so now let's look at what needs to be fixed. Now, let's look at needs to be fixed. And that's basically what happens. um anam kipper, you know, alet the the the confessional prayer and we admit all of the different wrongs, even things that we haven't done. That's why it's said in the plural, the the sin that we sinned, because even if we didn't personally do it, someone else may have done it. And you know, like they say in recovery, you got to bring your wei. Like the first the first word of the steps. Don't forget the first word of the steps. We It's not I admit it. It's we. We. All the the beginning of all the steps is implied. It's we. Every single step we admitted says we. But then came to believe. Who came to believe? We came to believe. Made a decision. Who made a decision? We made a decision. made a searching and fearless moral inventory. Who did? We we made a searching and a fearless moral inventory and and and and so on and so forth throughout the steps. So, a shaman gazali, these are all in the in those are all we that's a first person uh plural. First person plural is we. So, even if I didn't specifically do it, maybe someone else did it and uh we're doing this together. We're in this together. Yeah, you got to bring your wei. At any rate, the point is that Roshashana is the surrender and the acceptance, the submission. Yim Kipper is the inventory. Let's figure out what's broken and let's do something about it. And we get really into the nitty-gritty of the exact nature of our wrongs.