Christian Development

Let Go

Those words are pretty powerful.  Let go.  The phrase can be said in a variety of tones with a plethora of  inflections.  But when we actually “Let go”, it usually signals a release.  We “let go” of something.  We allow it to move away from us.  We release our control on it or over it.  It is free from us and we are free from it. And usually, we feel it right away.  The struggle is often in the letting go itself. Once we let go, we sense in our very bodies or souls the monumental struggle we had been having just holding on to “it”, whatever it was.

Francois Felenon was a Catholic Archbishop in the late 1600′s. He was a reforming leader in the Catholic church and didn’t always have a great relationship with other Catholic leaders. His writings sometimes brought him into trouble with the current Pope or the Inquisition.  However, he was a faithful Catholic throughout his life and did much on behalf of that church.  Because of that, I can’t recommend everything he wrote, especially as a Protestant pastor. But, he clearly knew Christ as Lord, and one little book of his that both my wife and I (and many Protestants over the years) have gleaned much from lately is titled, “LET GO.”     I want to quote at length something that he wrote almost 400 years ago in this little book:

“Even now my soul is suffering, but I am aware that it is the life of self which causes us pain; that which is dead does not suffer. If we were really dead, and our life hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), we would no longer struggle with those pains in spirit that now afflict us….But when you receive your cross unwillingly, you will find it doubly severe.  The resistance within is harder to bear than the cross itself! But if you recognize the hand of God, and make no opposition to His will, you will have peace in the midst of affliction.  Happy indeed are they who can bear their sufferings with this simple peace and perfect submission to the will of God! Nothing so shortens and soothes suffering as this spirit of non-resistance….Because the stubborn clinging to life which makes the cross necessary in the first place, also tends us to reject that cross-at least in part. so we have to go over the same ground again and again. We end up suffering greatly, but to very little purpose. May the Lord deliver us from falling into that state of soul in which crosses are of no benefit to us.” -Francois Felenon, LET GO, letter 2.

Sometimes bearing our cross means being able to “let go” of whatever we thought should be happening in our particular situation and taking up what God seems to want for us here and now.  When we hold on to our own desires for our circumstances, we resist God himself.  When we “let go” we are released to bear the cross each day, walking behind our beautiful savior, Jesus, becoming his disciples.

February 14, 2012 Posted by matttague | Christian Living, Church History, Discipleship | Discipleship | 1 Comment