Is Your Grip on Comfort too Tight??
I washed up on the shores of mid-life and still don’t have a clue about “letting go.”
Preservation and self-protection clench me like a vice grip. Change. Loss. Leaving. Starting over. Moving on. These quakes come like ocean waves, crashing hard, toppling my sense of stability. Life, I’ve learned, is a cycle of receiving and releasing. Yet to open our hands is counter-intuitive and scary. To surrender our ship to the waves, feels irresponsible.
What does “letting go” even look like? Geeze.
Until recently, I don’t think I have ever asked myself that question. Is it a daily posture, or is it a ceremony of dramatic relinquishment? When is holding on considered a holy grip of confident trust, and when is it a refusal to release idolatry and control?
I live in the tension of these two states. I don’t know what is foolish and what is wise. Discerning my motives is like looking for signage while driving through thick fog.
-Am I staying put because the fear of the unknown is so overwhelming? Oh, I’ve done that.
-Am I avoiding risk by telling myself, “To stay is a sign of commitment!” I have done that, too.
-Am I stepping out because I am uncomfortable in my present circumstances, but I justify it, “If this were God’s will it’s wouldn’t feel so challenging!”? Check.
One thing I do know, learning to let go is an ongoing part of being human. I have seen friendships, as robust as can be, disappear with a text, phone call, or email. I have seen long-held values compromised in a split second by an emotional surge. Entering marriage after years of singleness and find I still want to control the silly, small things..
Holding loosely is not easy, but it makes us courageous and keeps us humble.
2016 crashed over me and washed me up on the shores of an identity crisis. God took me out of a 20-year vocation in education.
MANY years ago in my classroom…reminding my students that Jesus was in the room with us, helping me teach 🙃.
He broke down my resistance forcing open my grip on all I knew myself to be. Killing what was killing me. These roots went deep. They needed to be pulled up, clipped, and replanted into new soil. This work of God was essential but excruciating. It was most certainly a severe mercy.
And such are the cycles of cut and release.
The Holy Spirit is always drawing us into something new. New growth. New relationships. New callings. New perspectives. New adventures. New interests. New stories. New places. New neighborhoods. New co-workers. New levels of attachment in your marriage. New contentment in singleness. New courage. New experiences. New strength. New willingness toward surrender. New freedoms.
Humility.
He is always protecting us from perfectionism that makes us self-righteous and robotic. Stunted self-protection and control. Out of his wisdom and goodness, he re-waters our clay, making us human again. All the while weaving a sturdy attachment between us and him.
“After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him.”
He is guiding us into relinquishment . Less control. Less fear. Less self-protection. Less anger. Less safety. Less unhealthy dependencies. Less narrow-mindedness. Less anxiety. Less justification and rationalization. Less atrophy. Less shallow roots. Less obsession with the exhaustion of validation. Less grip on control. Less need to be right.
And though it can be heart-wrenching, we gain backbone and tenacity we didn’t know we had. We become less fragile and more content. "Abundant life," Jesus called it. Straight from him, coursing through our blood and bones. We sit at his feet to receive what we can’t access through our own skill-sets or know-how.
And as Paul said…"He who calls you is faithful and HE WILL DO IT.”
A step, and another step, and another step…and soon we experience freedom and resurrection in our bones. To no credit of our own.
Author and professor Marilyn McEntyre words it well,
“There’s a time for prudence, and a time to consider security, and a time to forfeit one’s own desires for another’s sake. But my concern here is those times when we recognize a call to real risk or to a decision whose outcome we can’t predict…they were momentous decisions for me, but once I released my grip on the safe and the familiar, they were oddly easy…Something—someone—bore me up and would not let me go.”
How often do I avoid the need to trust God? Bubble-wrapping myself up into creature comforts, curtailing maturity (as I always say to my students, “Maturity does not come with age!”). Missing out on a closeness with Jesus that cannot come via independence and self-sufficiency.
So, my anxious friends, each sunrise offers us the possibility of letting go. Think of it as an invitation, an opportunity. A clenched grip is toxic to spiritual growth. Paying attention to our lives, naming our obsession with comfort and safety, are imperative for personal development. Surrender starts there. Take those idols straight to the Lord, Jesus.
Tell him you are afraid to let them go. Be honest with him.
Our God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. As the Psalmist says, “He remembers that we are dust.” As the Good Shepherd, he leads us in the way of LIFE and is patient as we struggle with the process. He loves us too much to leave us where we are. He doesn’t expect us to figure it out.
So, where are control and fear wrangling you into a corner?
…a wayward child?
…a move?
…leaving a job you place too much of your identity in?
…such strong opinions that you can’t listen?
…financial fear?
…friends or family where there is an unhealthy attachment or dependency?
…trusting God with aging parents?
…a boss that has a tough personality?
…loss in whatever form?
Get on your knees alone, practice the posture of the Puritans:…open your hands, and give him the things you can’t seem to release (Lord, I give you…), then open them again and ask him to give you what you need (Lord, help me receive…).
He who calls you is faithful and HE will do it.
Oh, and as you surrender, be alert, you’ll notice how near he is…