The Vineyard
Dear Friends,
When the pressures of life start to fall upon me—-or explode around me—-I find myself crying out for rescue. I am reminded of King David seeing his life as if he were in a slimy pit and could not crawl out. Recently, while praying, I told God once again that I wanted to give up everything and let Him take total control. I wondered, perhaps, if this time God might have responded, “No thanks, it’s your mess, it’s beyond impossible, fix it yourself”. Thank goodness God is nothing like me—-He never gives up and never tires of cleaning up my messes, nor does He get irritated when I ask Him to resuscitate me.
The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 42 and again in Psalm 43:
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
It’s rather absurd to suggest that we never get a bit low or downcast. If David did, so will most of mankind. But he argued with himself that the reason he was disturbed and saddened was that he kept forgetting to place His trust in God. Against all common sense and the advice of others—-put your hope in God…..and soon enough you will find yourself praising Him.
Letting go—-REALLY loosening my grip on whatever it is that has become a burden to me—-always brings an immediate sensation of His Holy Spirit and peace and something tells me: “It’s going to be okay”. I know that He has taken over. But as much as I want to permanently “terminate my control” of those things I can’t control in the first place , each time I do give Him total authority over something or someone in my life, it seems that the situation goes really crazy and the very thing I had “released” gets worse not better later on in the day. And so there’s that temptation of trying to get my grubby little hands back around the thing again! The sustained peace comes in the morning… and I have to let things get worse before they get better.
It’s the “holding onto” things that have made me miserable during my life—-whether it’s something I own, or something that I have neglected, or handled poorly, or that I want to control—-and this can be “things”, emotions, people and even good works!
I know that He wants me to let go and trust Him in all things, but there’s a constant tug in my spirit to “get it done all by myself”. There’s that extreme on one side of me that does not want to become “lazy” about life and my work, and what I could and should be doing; then there’s the other extreme side that thinks I can’t do anything right or good enough. In between is a Savior who whispers, “you can do all things through me”, but also, “apart from me you can do nothing”.
Warmly,
Dean Barley
The Vineyard
Dean@VineyardCamp.com
336 351 2070
919 360 8493 (Mobile)
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