Let It Go

Let It Go

Sometimes I’m such a slow learner that God patiently repeats my lessons, changing the scenery but not the subject matter. Lately, his curriculum has centered on letting go.

I’d stopped into a neighborhood deli for a box lunch and placed it on the passenger seat of my car. I was driving down a busy city street . . . hungry enough to eat my meal in the car, but heading home instead. The fellow on foot at the intersection held up a sign that said “Broke. Hungry.” He had two pressing problems, and I had only one. I could solve his second problem. All it required was surrendering my neatly packaged tuna-on-wheat sandwich with salt-and-vinegar chips and a pickle. I rolled the window down just as the light was turning green again and held out the box. “Want my lunch?” I asked. He did. “God bless you,” he said as the car behind me honked, and I let my sandwich go.

On another day and on a different street, I was stopped again at a light when I heard a woman shouting into her cell phone. Every other word she was screaming would have been bleeped if she’d been on television. I felt the walls of my heart go up in resistance to her spewing rage. But before the light changed, I looked again. She was still holding the phone, shaking her head from side to side and wiping away tears that were streaming down her cheeks. I hadn’t planned to, but I whispered, “Help her, Jesus. Please help her.” And as the words fell out, I let my judgment go.

Sandwiches and judgments are easier to surrender than my own pride or selfishness or plans. I’m learning to release my grip on those as well, as my Tutor bears down hard for my own good. Moment by moment, a trusting response to the Spirit is the kind of life I’m made for.

Maybe after a thousand more lessons, large and small, I will finally learn, no matter what I’m clinging to, to simply let it go.

May the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!

2 Thessalonians 3:16, NASB