To Let Go, and to Let God

Let go, and let God. This is what we said in youth group. It sounded inspirational, so we kept repeating it, again, and again. Stressing too much over a test? Let go and let God. Afraid of falling and hurting yourself during the ski trip? Let go and let God. Holding onto a grudge? Let go and let God. It sounds right enough at least. The thing is, the more we say it, the less we practice it. Take that first example: You're studying for a test, going crazy trying to cram more info into your head, because you waited until the last minute. You couldn't control yourself enough to study beforehand, so now you're trying to control your grade. You hear "Let go, and let God" and you're calm. You think, yes, He'll take care of this for me. And that's when you're most controlling. You're not letting go, you're trying to get God to do what you should have done yourself. You're controlling a whole different entity. And then you get mad at Him when it doesn't go your way.

To Let Go is to accept that things may not go the way you plan. In fact, they might get worse. Picture yourself hanging on a cliff, and you can't see the bottom. If you let go, you might fall into water or it might not be that bad of a drop... or you might die. Letting go is accepting your fate, whatever it's destined to be.

To Let God is to trust. This doesn't mean that letting go of that cliff will definitely result in you being just fine. This means that you've come to peace with what He has chosen for you. You're letting him take the wheel, as Carrie Underwood would say, and you trust that He has a reason and a purpose for everything that happens in your life.

To Let Go and To Let God means relinquishing all control. It means becoming a piece of driftwood and allowing yourself to be taken and changed by the environment around you. It's difficult. Myself, a planner, a slight control-freak... to let go and to let God scares me more than the Evil Dead. Knowing what you need to do and taking that first leap, letting go... well, there's a lot of time between those two steps. So, for now, I'm holding on to my control, because I'm not ready yet to drift in the water, to be taken to unknown places... I'm holding on, and I'm praying up until that moment when I'm truly ready to Let God.