Sarah Jakes Roberts New Book Is 'The Power in Surrender'
Sarah Jakes Roberts Gives You The Guide To Surrendering In Her New Devotional Book
- Prioritize what you want, not what others expect, to create positive change.
- Maintain healthy boundaries and let relationships evolve naturally, rather than force change.
- Progress comes in different paces - embrace the slower moments as valuable.
Sarah Jakes Roberts is not forcing anything, and she doesn’t want you to either. The spiritual leader celebrates the joy and agency in letting go in The Power in Surrender: 100 Ways to Tap into the Courage to Trust God’s Plan Over Fear, Worry, and Doubt her new book of devotionals.
Being raised on church pews isn’t a requirement to appreciate the book’s instructions. Everyone can benefit from the honesty and thoughtfulness The Power in Surrender encourages.
It explores how personal power is diminished under the weight of others’ opinions and argues you can’t create shifts without examining the root of your problems. It’s a blueprint for getting your life together by prioritizing what you want from it, not what you think you should or how you think others should live theirs.
Roberts stresses the importance of disciplined detachment. This can be difficult in a world where algorithms appear to reflect our impact through numbers. It can be easier to conform to what gets more attention than to stand apart.
“If we aren’t careful, we will reduce ourselves down to trying to beat an algorithm when in actuality our first responsibility is, the first function is, obedience,” she says.
Surrendering To Your Purpose
The former HB cover girl feels hope can overcome digital incivility. “We have to trust that when we’re speaking from a place of hope that when we’re speaking from a place of inspiration that it is going to find the people who need it the most,” says Jakes Roberts. “When we devote our time, our habits, our thought patterns with intention, the outcomes just come organically.”
Related: World Book Day: 15 Books By Black Women That Changed My Brain Chemistry
Jakes Roberts recommends turning inward to observe your actions to find the path to surrender that suits your purpose. “Sometimes, we’re so busy trying to change something that we just jump into it without taking the time to really observe. What is my current world? What are some of the things that I’m doing each day? It literally may be you like writing down the flow of your day,” she continues.
“Take that time to examine and dissect the way that we are showing up in the world and whether or not it aligns with who we feel we are called to be.”
Refusing to do this can lead to stagnation. “If we aren’t taking that time to assess, we are going to get stuck.”
Surrendering To Radical Authenticity
Your glow-up is not a mallet to wack stale friends with. Bestie won’t stop dealing with a dusty or stick to a gym schedule? That’s her business. Surrender.
Jakes Roberts suggests avoiding the trap of judgement.
“Them staying the same doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to walk away from them,” she says. “When there’s a moment of that conflict, I think that radical authenticity is the best way to fix it. A lot of times, we feel like we need to have these conversations where it’s like, ‘You know what, I’m growing, you’re not. I’m walking out the door.’ You know? And I feel like that can leave people in a more damaged state.”
Letting relationships fade rather than finger-wagging keeps the focus on your growth. “If we just announce our change, then the departure may be something that happens organically,” she continues.
Set the tone for what counts as suitable companionship through consistent healthy choices and refusals to backslide will
“That begins to create boundaries, and within those boundaries, you inspire someone else to join you on that journey, or they distance themselves because they recognize that that part of themselves doesn’t necessarily function for where you’re headed.”
You control how you show up, nothing else.
Related: Shaunie Henderson On Overcoming Her Fears And Releasing Her Memoir
Surrendering To Your Capacity
Jakes Roberts had plans to hit 2026 running. Now, she’s strolling at a pace that’s right for her. “I tried to do 75 hard this year, and 75 hard did me,” she says plainly.
Some wouldn’t admit this. She declares, “Slow is still progress.”
She is making progress towards a degree in human development and family studies to bring hands-on strategies to the thousands attending her Women Evolve Conference. “I felt like we were doing a good job inspiring women and spreading hope, but then they needed practical tools and help,” she says.
Sometimes she has the energy to preach, parent, be a good friend, and study with a glass of chamomile tea at her side. Other times she needs a pause.
She surrenders to what is right for her in real time. “I want to live every day, like it is my last, but I also want to be present in each moment, and I think it’s a matter of slowing down and not putting pressure on myself,” she explains.
She knows she can’t control what people take away from The Power In Surrender or who reads it.
“I can’t force it to meet the people who need it the most,” she says. “All I can do is be responsible for making sure that it gets out there.”
The Power in Surrender is available where books are sold on March 3.
DON’T MISS:
