falling forward

As a follower of Christ, you may have heard the following line bantered about, “Let go, let God.” It’s kind of a big deal in the faith community as it says the complex nature of our relationship with God simply.

Like the recovery community, the faith community has its little mantras or clichés to remind itself of how to progress through the daily grind. We like the simple stuff, the palatable, easy-to-compress-shiny-happy-shrink-wrapped lines that make our lives more efficient. Lines like this in our faith feel good, feel comfortable, like a good pair of sweat pants and our favorite t-shirt as we settle in front of another evening of television.

It just feel right.

However the reality is, if we’re being honest with ourselves, this little mantra isn’t as comfortable as we speak it. This little ditty is about our will versus God’s will for our lives.

Yeah, not so touchy-feely in retrospect, huh?

I’m not here to state God’s will is a bad thing, for sure it isn’t. But, seriously – we like our will, our determination, the fires of our desires that burn deep within. That’s the stuff that moves us from scenario to scenario, isn’t? And in the end of it all, to submit our will would be to potentially hinder our daily survival, right? I mean, God’s will might be that I complete fast for Lent or start actually giving him my tithes in the truest form – and I have to survive out here! I have to eat, provide, and fight for my daily life after all. Right? If I don’t work for my survival, I would probably starve or something. Once that starts going down hill, heck it’s over. After all, we’re supposed to struggle and suffer through this life after the whole Adam and Eve debacle, right?

Heck, I don’t wake-up asking God if I should go to work, eat, be a good employee, care about the people in my life. Do you? Seriously, we have like a bajillion things to do daily in our lives and we certainly don’t stop and ask God what we should be doing at every turn. We just wake-up, face the day, and do what we gotta do. We may not like this but we sort of like God in the periphery don’t we? Let’s keep our relationship with him to before meals, bedtime, and when our family is sick. Right?

So what am I getting at here? Try as though we might say we do, we rarely give God any sincere margin of our will. To do so would be to ask for life altering circumstances to be ushered in. I mean let’s face it, God might call me to sell everything, give it to the poor, and move to India to tend to lepers in the streets of Calcutta. Turning our will over to him is to usher in a divine storm that would sweep away the pavilions of our grand illusions that let us believe we’re in control.

Yeah, don’t know if I’m up for that today.

Something like this calls for extraordinary strength and a peace of mind that everything is going to turn out as planned. How did that work-out for Jeremiah? Ezekiel? Job?! John the Baptists eating locusts, seriously?! Mother Teresa? Martin Luther King, Jr.? If that’s the game, I’m not ready. Give it all to God - he takes all. I think I’m not near brave enough for such an undertaking.

How about you?

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