Struggling To Let Go?

Before God can take us onto the next revelation—toward the precise purposes of this season—there is always the condition: let go of something dear.

And it will cost!

It will live to sting badly if we attempt to hang on to it as it’s ripped from our clutching breast. This is a test of the strength of our obedience; to let go of our gods of convenience, self-condolence and comfort that run in competition with God.

These sorts of gods are cavernous—we don’t realise how difficult to let go these will be until God, by our changing circumstance, calls “TIME!”

When the death knell is sounded that part of life will be required of us. We’ll have to let go, or we may find ourselves estranged and spat out (Revelation 3:16) of that life.

The reality will be the same despite us. The only logical way is to let go, in the right way—which is to be discerned—and at the right time.

Wisdom is letting go, with as little fuss and perceived loss as possible (because there is loss and, therefore, grief.)

What about the Good News?

Saving the best until last is preferred.

An encouraging truth is this: Room must be made to accommodate new things, which may be intermediate in nature, and the old thing we cling to may cramp the style of the new thing, spoiling or delaying it.

The boldest confidence of life is letting go with a sort of truth-reconciled-abandon. In other words, a pleasant mix of honest bravery is needed in understanding, logically, that letting certain things go is necessary.

The struggle is around identity—a big part of our person has gone into this thing we now have to let go of. We hardly think about identity until we are required to change and then it bedraggles the very tassels of our inner fabric.

Fashioning a new identity—or part thereof—is in some ways frightening, but it’s also renewing and revitalising. As we bust past the old exterior, rubbing away as sandpaper the layers deeper down, we endure a foreign set of emotions. But, take heart; we will look back over these times as if they are a privileged memoir that proved the making of us—because they are.

Looking back at the old life from a sufficient distance we see the meaning in change; the significance comes from within us, and it can only be defined or described by us, personally. We have come to know ourselves. Intimacy is uncommonly ours.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.