Just Let Go

"I'm letting go... and falling into you..." - From Letting Go by Steffany Gretzinger

***

The spotlight shone obnoxiously in my eyes: the heat of the light, the total and utter blackness of everything else conveying the full weight of it's pressure.

Beneath my feet, there was nothing but a wire. The spotlight on me, I felt the pressure to perform, and yet I felt paralyzed. I was utterly exposed. I could see nothing but blackness outside of the light firmly fixed on me. Terrified of falling, of failing, I could not take a step.

Several years ago, as I was going through the MBA application process, this was a recurring dream I had. And then, I had the dream again...

And suddenly, consciously, I just let go and fell off the tight rope. The fall was peaceful and softened by a huge, soft safety net.

I pulled myself from the safety net and walked to a door in the room. Walking out the door, I found myself on a beautiful garden path.

I was filled with relief.

That was the last time I had that dream.

***

This post has been sitting in my draft list for probably close to a month. I haven't finished it, or published it, because I wanted to have "arrived" before I posted it.

I've been finding that old idol of perfectionism creeping up in my life. I want to get this contentment thing perfect. I want to surrender perfectly. I even find myself waking up thinking about Greek noun forms because I'm so desperate to memorize them so I can do well in class. (A class where I find myself feeling competitive but that has no grades or bearing whatsoever on my future.)

I crashed this week, though. Woke up Monday morning feeling sick and weak. And I had to just stop.

I like to come up with plans. If I can just chart the next few steps, I can start stepping my way out of a situation and make some progress. If I'm battling spiritual attack, I just need to find the right verse from my memory bank and meditate on the truth. Step 1) identify the source of the attack. Step 2) find the right verse. Step 3) repeat until I believe it.

I've realized that there is no plan or perfection in letting go.

You just... let... go...

A week or so ago, I was fighting off some major spiritual attack. And I was going through my three steps. And I went to the gym, thinking that a run would be a good distraction, but the intervals my coach had set up for me were too hard for how I was feeling that day. Cue more attack.

As I was walking back to the parking lot, I realized I just didn't have it in me anymore to walk through all the steps. So I just stopped and said "Daddy, I need you."

And immediately, I felt a rush of peace.

***

This post was originally supposed to be about letting go of all the pressure that those of us who are single find ourselves under... Pressure to be more open, to try more networking, to stop worrying about our singleness, to give "so and so" a shot, to try some new online dating site, to put ourselves out there, to stop believing the lies about ourselves that have built up over the years...

I was tired of worrying about it. But every time I decided to let go, I started worrying again. I would stress about my actions, and was I properly protecting my heart, was I leading anyone on and yada yada yada.

I couldn't stop.

I think we all do this, single or not.

We live as if it depends on us. As if God is up in heaven waiting for us to perform the right way so he can bless us with joy or contentment or some sort of tangible blessing. As if we can somehow live our lives in such a way to avoid pain or suffering. As if there's a perfect magical formula we can figure out and then put our lives on auto-pilot.

We can't.

All we can do is let go and fall into grace.

Is God REALLY Working All Things for my Good?

And we know, that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Chances are, if you grew up in the church, this was one of the verses that you memorized back in Sunday School.

It's possible, likely, that you have had someone quote this verse to you when you have gone through a difficult time, or been waiting for something. It's one that tends to get quoted along with Psalm 37:4 ("Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart") and Jeremiah 29:11 ("For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.")

I was walking with a friend this week, who asked how things were going, and I replied "I'm really learning that God actually works all things for my good, that he is for me and that he graciously gives me all things, and so it's been going really well lately."

And he said, "you've got to be careful with that. God doesn't really work all things for good like you expect."

Now before delving into an argument about the inerrancy of Scripture and calling him a heretic, I explained further what I believed Romans 8:28 was referring to, and it turned out we were on the exact same page.

At our core, we all have a story about how we see our lives shaping out. For many of us who are single, for example, that story is so often oriented around the path to marriage. Since this blog is focused on singleness, I'll follow that thread throughout the rest of this post, but we can also have stories rooted around our educational achievements, our career successes, our financial stability, our children's success, the growth of our ministries, and on and on.

With a story focused on the path to the altar, when we read that God works all things together for God, we intuitively read it as "well, if that door was closed because guy/girl #1 was not interested in me, it's because God has someone even better lined up for me." You probably even have examples where you've seen this happen.

This is not what Paul meant when he wrote that, and it's not what God promises in all of the verses I mentioned above. Whatever narrative we may have in our lives that leads us to expect specific outcomes from God is not our true story. (And I already blogged about that!)

Here's what we often think about that:

I would submit to you, though, that what God is really promising here is infinitely better.

Here's the thing about our stories: they end, they cause us to live in worry whether things are going well or not going as we hope, and they never live up to their promises (even if we achieve them).

They end...

The stories that are rooted in things here on earth will come to an end one way or another. If the story is about the dream wedding, either we will die without it happening, or we will have it and then it will be over. We can achieve career success, but then we retire.

They cause us to live in worry...

Have you ever gotten That Thing and lost it? Probably. We've all been through that unless we've lived an incredibly charmed life. When our story is oriented around That Thing, we worry that we won't find it. When we have it, we worry that we're going to lose it. We worry that God doesn't really understand what we need or how we would like the story to shape up. Living in worry is not a good way to live.

They never live up to their promises...

Tim Keller has a really great sermon about the story of Jacob and Leah. To provide a quick synopsis: Jacob sees Rachel (Leah's younger sister) and falls uncontrollably in love with her. He agrees to work seven years to get Rachel as his wife, and after those seven years pass, Jacob gets his bride... But "in the morning, behold, it was Leah!" (Gen. 29:25) The reality is that all things are really "Leah" in the morning. CS Lewis describes this well in Mere Christianity.

"Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us."

God has a much better story on offer for us.

His story never ends.

God has sent his Son to redeem us so we can have a relationship with him for eternity. Our purpose in life is to glorify him and we will do that throughout eternity.

He promises we have nothing to worry about.

When we choose to believe what God says about us and has for us, we can rest in his promises. God's work in our story is to shape us into his likeness so we can bring glory to him. It rests in the saving work Christ accomplished for us on the cross and does not depend on us. I do not need to stress about how or whether God is going to use me because it does not depend on me.

What he promises is better than we can imagine.

In Ephesians 3:20, Paul talks about how God "is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine" (NIV). We focus our lives on what we can see or imagine here, focusing on the best of what we can see on earth. God promises so much more.

If you don't quite buy this, but are intrigued, Tim Keller also has a great sermon on Romans 8:28-30.

What's Your Story?

It somehow came to pass that on Saturday morning at 11 a.m., I found myself on a couch on the campus of an old university across the river in a meeting of "The Society of the Two Tasks". The topic of discussion for this particular meeting was world views: what are they? How can you tell what someone's world view is? What are some of the different world views?

Naturally, we all approached the discussion with the framework of assessing and addressing the world views of others; in particular those hostile to Christianity. But the instructor soon turned the discussion inward: is your world view really in line with what you profess to believe?

He proposed that we all have, at our core, a story. Our story can be along the lines of "I'm going to shape the industry I work in and make a difference" or "When I get my degree, all the hard work and effort will be meaningful", etc. From this story, flows our identity: "I'm a career woman" or "I'm a smart academic". From that flows our actual convictional beliefs (which often contradict our "confessional" beliefs, or what we say we believe). Then come our priorities, and finally our actions.

***

It then came to pass that on Sunday night, I found myself lounging on the couch watching a chick flick with my roommate and her boyfriend. It had been a long time since I'd actually watched a chick flick* and I found myself disillusioned and annoyed with the plot line.

I had a realization, though. Most of my life, I've been saturated with all things romance: Christy Miller novels in high school, well-intentioned (don't date) dating books called "When God Writes Your Love Story", chick flick after chick flick and romance novel after romance novel. Thanks to the purity culture, at full steam during my teenage and young adult years, so much of that core story started to shape itself around love, romance, marriage and God's plan for my love life.

It was so well intentioned: make wise decisions, think about the future impact of the choices you make today, (don't let getting pregnant in high school mess up your future). But it also had the by-product of shaping that core story in my life to be a romance novel in which everything that God did in my life was part of his his plan for my life... my love life.

***
God is teaching me that my story is very different.

This is our story:

God created the world, and it was good. Man and nature were in perfect shalom, and God created man and woman out of a perfect love and a perfect community. The purpose of creation was to bring glory to God. Mankind was tasked with cultivating creation and creating culture. Man sinned and broke that perfect relationship. Sin disrupted shalom and suddenly the joyful task of work was cursed with thorns and thistles.

But God had a plan.

The punishment and consequence for sin is death: separation from God. God could not judge sin apart from eternal separation from us, so in love he sent his Son Jesus to live the life we should have lived and die the death we should have died. Jesus bore our punishment and rose from the dead, conquering death once and for all.

When we choose to accept what Christ has done for us, we are saved, being saved and will be saved. At once, we are positionally saved - in God's books, our record is spotless. We are being saved - we undergo the process of sanctification as we learn to live out a perfect relationship with God that is marked by obedience and submission. We will be saved - there will come a time when we experience full shalom without also being exposed to the consequences of sin here on this broken earth.

When we are saved, at least two exciting things happen:

1. God promises that he works all things for our good.
2. We get to participate in bringing glory to God as he uses us to restore creation and live in community with others.

So that story replaces our other stories. It is a timeless story - we will be fulfilling that story throughout our time on earth. 

It is a story that does not lead to disappointment... Have you ever noticed chick flicks don't have sequels? No one cares what happens in the hard times after the wedding... that isn't funny and doesn't make us swoon. 

It's a story that leads to a lasting identity... child of God, co-heir with Christ, worshiper of God.

I know we all know this... but I think there's value in pausing to reflect. What is your story? What are the narratives shaping your life? How are they shaping your priorities? What disappointments are rooted in having a different story for your life than the beautiful story of what God has done for you and calls you to?

As you consider this, remember... grace and love are at the root of the story. Sanctification takes time, but we come to it from a place of victory. We are loved and accepted, even when we don't remember that we are loved and accepted.

*I actually used to really love a good, lighthearted, funny chick flick, but I can't remember the last time one actually came out. Everything these days is either "bring a box of tissues" or super raunchy, neither of which satisfy my chick flick need.