Letting Go and Letting God

I have recently spent a week at Blairmore House, Ellel’s base in Scotland, where we had six or seven inches (sorry, I don’t do centimetres!) of snow. It covered the roofs of the cars and eventually slid off leaving piles of snow all round them. Someone needed to use the minibus and began trying to move it, but it was a useless struggle, the wheels kept spinning in the deep snow and the minibus was going nowhere. Eventually another person arrived with a small tractor, attached a rope to the front of the minibus and hauled out of its icy patch to somewhere where there was less snow so that the tyres were able to get a grip and move under its own steam.

One of the students on the course had watched these proceedings and said, “That’s just like me. For years I have trying to do things myself. I thought my problems were too big for God to handle so I struggled to manage them myself and keep them under control, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. When I finally allowed God to come and help me, things began to change.”

We so often struggle along on our own, trying to do things in our own strength, but usually failing. We try to be better people, or to break addictive habits or repeated sinful behaviours, or even try to fix the mess of wounded emotions inside us, on our own, perhaps frightened that it is all too big for God and that He’ll walk away in the middle of sorting it, leaving us in a worse mess.

We need to realise that it was for the very purpose of sorting us out that Jesus came and died on the cross for us, and because He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, He will never walk away and leave us to get on with things alone. He may not always move us as fast as we would like, but once we allow Him into the mess, He will want to keep taking us gently on until we know freedom inside.

It may all seem very scary having to face the pain and hurt of the past, but with God it can be done, and the only way to gain freedom from the past is to face it in the present and release the hurt to God.

Prayer: Father God, I am so sorry that I have kept You out of my mess. I now realise that it is not too big for You to handle and I come to You today, asking that You will take control of my life and guide me through to freedom. In Jesus’ precious name, I ask it, Amen.