Let Go

For people who hate discipline and only get more stubborn,There’ll come a day when life tumbles in and they break,but by then it’ll be too late to help them.

Proverbs 29:1 (THE MESSAGE)

This is a sober description and a serious warning. Sure enough, we can all think of people who are hardheaded, hard-hearted, stubborn, unwilling to yield or be corrected.

Do you know how they capture monkeys in the jungle? The trap of stubbornness. A hole is drilled in a coconut shell, just large enough for a monkey to thrust in his hand. It is then filled with nuts and fastened firmly to a tree at sunset. Drawn by the scent of food, the monkey will put his hand into the shell and grasp the nuts. But the hole is too small for him to withdraw his now-clenched fist. Pull as he may, he is trapped unless he releases his nuts. This poor stubborn monkey, nothing holds him captive but himself.

But are there times that we too are just like this monkey? The answer can be right under our noses, but we are stuck because we won’t give up our right to our right. Oh foolish us. Let’s stop fearing discipline and change, knowing that God brings it into our life to break us of our rigid ways.

Do you want to let God do a fresh, freeing work? Write the words Let God. Then, strike out the d and you’ll know the secret: Let Go.

“Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

All to Jesus I surrender; All to Him I freely give,

I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all,

All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender; Humbly at His feet I bow,

Worldly pleasures all forsaken; Take me, Jesus, take me now.

—JUDSON VAN DEVENTER IN “I SURRENDER ALL”

One Year Bible Reading

Daniel 11:2-35; 1 John 3:7-24; Psalm 122:1-9; Proverbs 29:1