Let Go and Let God

Sometimes you have done everything you know to do to solve a problem in your life without any success. You have invested a tremendous amount of effort. You have analyzed the situation from every possible angle. In fact, you have reached the end of your human capacity to overcome the situation and you find yourself, appropriately, at wits end. It is times such as these that it becomes necessary to simply let go and let God.

Letting go and letting God does not mean you no longer care about your situation or in finding a solution. Nor does it mean that you refuse to make any further effort in concert with that for which you have been praying. It is not giving up nor is it surrendering to the opposition. Instead, letting go and letting God is more about finally surrendering your worry and fear about how the situation is going to end. If you think about it, anytime you or I are worried over a result we so desperately need, we cannot be believing and trusting God at the same time. Some problems in this life exceed our capacity to solve them. Certain difficulties and maladies are deeply rooted in the spiritual realm and as such lie outside our capacity to understand them with our finite human intelligence and logic. Sometimes, maybe often, our worries and fears are the actual roadblock to us receiving what it is we need. Enter letting go and letting God. When we finally decide to let go and let God, and it’s always a good place at which to arrive, we are agreeing with God that we cannot solve this problem on our own. We affirming that which was true from the beginning, namely that we need God’s help to overcome challenges in this life. Usually at this juncture we have exhausted ourselves in our human efforts, found no answer and have wasted an enormous amount of time in futility and frustration. As human beings our tendency is to keep circling down the same paths over and over again loathe to admit that we do not know what to do. And even when we can admit we do not know what to do, we still persist in the doing that leads nowhere. It never dawned on us that the solution is not going to be found in our human effort, no matter how much effort we dutifully supply, but instead the solution can be found in just letting go!

There is an oft quoted little poem that says it best:

When you let go and let God you really have to let it go. You have to relinquish your dogged insistence on figuring it out on your own. Yes it still matters to you obviously, but you have to become willing to turn it loose. In turning it loose you are also letting go of all of your worry and stress you have been adding to your efforts. Unknown to you maybe you have been refusing to let the thing go by carrying around all of that worry and fear concerning it. And your worry and fear become the blocker that stops you from receiving the answer God so ardently wants to give you. Often we are not waiting on God but God is waiting on us. He is waiting for us to relinquish it to Him. He won’t take it from us. We have to let it go. Letting something go and turning it over to Him lock, stock and barrel is an act of believing on our part. We have to learn to stop thinking about it, worrying about it and trying to figure it out on our own. When God promised to supply all of our need He meant it and with that he added no requirement on our part other than to simply believe Him. Despite what you have likely heard, He does not require us to reach a level of holiness or perfection with our flesh to receive from Him. His promises have no catch in them nor any, “yes, buts.” All of the catches, all of the conditions, all of the requirements have been added by man in an endless attempt to figure out spiritual matters with a fleshly mind. It is no wonder people have trouble getting their prayers answered. They are still trying to help in, “ways that are their own.” “Let that shit go Elsa” as the saying goes. Really let it go. Turn it over and don’t take it back. How often have we stopped living our lives while waiting on the solution to our problem when that wasn’t what God wanted for us at all. Nothing sticks it back in the face of evil like simply turning it over to God and continuing to live your best life while He solves it for you. That is true belief and trust in God.

When you let go of your determined yet futile efforts to solve something or get something you need, you also let go of all of your angst concerning it. You let go of all of that stress that has been eating you alive. God isn’t found in all of the commotion and agitation. He is found in the quiet peace and serenity. You find Him and His solutions for your life when you get quiet inside, trusting and expecting. In order to get there you have to let something go. You don’t need that which you are letting go. It does not help you, in fact it just blinds your mind to the things God wants you to see. Let go brother. Let it go sister. Let go and let God!

How strange and ironic it is; how paradoxical that in order to solve your biggest challenges in life you would simply need to move out of the way and let God solve them for you. It seems to go against all of the, “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and “if you just work hard enough you can do anything” logic we have been inundated with for years and years. At the end of the day life is spiritual and in order to prevail in life we need spiritual power to assist us. We need for God to do for us what He promised He would do and even more importantly, we have to let Him do it. Nothing is too big or too hard for God. With Him nothing is impossible. Why not take a much needed rest from all of your mentally and physically exhausting efforts and just turn the whole thing over to Him. Reaching your wits end is just that, the end of your ability to solve it. Why not turn it over to the One whose “wit” has no end? Why not let go and let God?

Just some good thoughts…