"Let go and let God."
But what does a sound bite like this really mean? It is a call to conquer selfishness in all its forms and this is so pervasive in our society that we may not even recognise it.
Letting go of our desire to possess and own stuff, power, money and even people.
Letting go of prejudices and attitudes that jar with the teaching of Jesus.
Letting go of wanting to be accepted and popular.
Letting go of everything that stands in the way of our relationship with God.
This is not easy. We kid ourselves that we can have both a close relationship with God and all these things too. But we clutter our lives and our minds and hearts and convince ourselves that we need it all.
A minister I know has a huge library of religious books. He has far more than he can ever read - indeed so many that he now no longer knows what he has! So he has decided that this Lent he will give away one book a day for each of the forty days. Losing forty books will make little impact on the clutter of his overcrowded study but hopefully it will help him concentrate on what is most important and not on the peripherals of faith.
To let go we need to trust God. We need to believe that God will be there to fill the empty space left behind. We need an open heart and an open mind to let God dwell fully in us. And after we have given ourselves to God then we can experience the riches of the gifts that are given to us. All it needs is for us to let go. Then God can and will deliver.
This year my lent discipline is to write a thought each day on my blog.
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
No comments:
Post a Comment