Post 6: Letting Go in Order To Receive

Special dedication to S23 on the occasion of her 32nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Oldgirl...

There is a phrase I come across every now and again, and I think of it often.

"In order for God to let go of what is in His hand, you're going to have to let go of what is your hand."

I first heard that phrase some 10 years ago when I lived in New Orleans. There was an evangelist speaking that evening, whose specialty and main focus was in the area of wisdom.

I remember thinking, "That's crazy".

But I wrote it down nevertheless.

And I think of another phrase in conjunction with that one:

"God answers prayers in due season. Anything other than that would be disastrous."

I've seen those phrases from time to time... I've heard them talked about in one manner or another.

And I've examined my own life over the years, and I've found it to be true.

What, you don't get that?

Took me a minute to really get that.

Here's an example.

So, your 5 year old asks for the keys to the car.

The little one wants to take the car for a spin around the block.

You just say "Sure!" And you throw the kid the keys to the car.

No you don't. That's against the law. Plus it can be disastrous.

The kid has to grow up. And once he does reach the right age, there's a proving ground. He or she has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are responsible.

He or she has to give up a little of their selfish ways, a little of that "I wanna do what I wanna do" that burns in the teenage soul. They have to show that they can follow all of your rules before they can be trusted to handle that car on their own.

Yeah, that's a bit of a convoluted example. But you get my drift.

Another example (a hypothetical one, mind you... REMEMBER that while reading this).

I have had many problems keeping up with and paying my bills. I've been praying and every time I pray for some help from God. Pleading even. "I need more money. Please help me!"

I get little bonuses here and there. Little things happen.

But I always take that little bonus money, and go out and buy myself a little smack... shoot up a little. My regular folks don't know this. I hide this from them. What would they think if they knew I was doing something like that?

It's my little thing I like to do on the side. I even got a few friends I shoot up with.

Man, that sure feels good going in my arm.

"Lord, bless me!"

Hmm...

All of a sudden, I inherit some big money. Say a million dollars.

Wow! The Lord has blessed me!

Blessed be the name of the Lord!'

(You know how we do.)

But...

Does me gaining a million dollars all of a sudden cause me to give up my little heroin habit?

Does it?

No.

I'm calling up my shoot up buddies... We flying to Hawaii.

"Don't ya'll worry! Shawty, I got this!! It's all on me!"

We all happy! Rolling first class to Hawaii! With my peeps.

And I reserved a penthouse suite in the best hotel. And I found a connection - got us allll the "refreshments" we want. And it's there at the hotel waiting for us when we get there.

(Yeah, we got it like that. Money talks).

I shoot up that good stuff. Man it feels good.

But it's purer than that 3% blow I usually buy. This here is that 90% blow.

A few of my folks shoot up and overdose. They die.

I get arrested. I go to jail. Convicted. 15 year sentence.

Or just as bad, I shoot up. I do too much. I die.

Game over. Life over.

DISASTROUS.

(Note: that was an example. I don't do dope. I smoked plenty weed back in the day, but I never fooled with that heroin, man!)

God is a good God. He acts like a father should act. He'll give me my hearts desire.

But you best believe I better do my part. He's willing to do His part, but I better do what I have to do too.

I better give up that heroin habit.

I know, I know, another convoluted example. An extreme one, but an example nevertheless.

I see this type of thing allll through scripture, time and time again. It's more of a theme than outright statement.

People praying about stuff left and right all through the Old testament and New Testament. But nothing happens until they give up some things.

Like: fear, selfishness, unbelief, hate, bad habits... all kinds of stuff.

One of our assistant pastors shocked us good fashion one evening. He said when he was younger, he was praying for a wife. He really wanted to be married. He wanted a good godly woman.

He said the Lord told him "I'm not bringing a holy woman into an unholy situation."

We all looked at him like he was crazy. You're a minister, dude! What the heck are you talking about?

He went on to detail a few things going on at the time. He examined his life. He had a pretty wild thought life going on. There were things going on when no one was looking, things he was hiding.

He spoke about how he had to let a lot of stuff go. That's when things began to happen. That's when the bottleneck cleared out: when he gave up a lot of his bad habits.

Sometimes you have to let go of people to make space for what God has for you.

I truly understood this when I read one of Serenity's post yesterday ("Diary Files"). It is the reason I decided to write this post today, and include it in my 40 posts.

These are things that she has written about in the past, and I know more detail of her thoughts and feelings since we talk alot. But it was a very moving post.

She's my folk, so I don't think she would be bothered by my lifting of her quote.
The part that I highlighted in red is what stood out to me.

"I've written before about my desire to have a committed relationship that leads to marriage and my desire for Tyler to have a father in the house and well I felt like I needed to really express to God about this situation and how the small semblance of a father figure that he has is now not apart of his life. Before I can even finish my thought to write it down, I had the strangest feeling and it was almost as [if] God was telling me that I shouldn't worry about it b/c sometimes you have to let go of old situations in order to be ready for new ones. It was definitely a feeling of peace."

That post was poignant in all it's making. Very much so.

This is another one of those posts I'd been wanting to write to myself, but was up in the air about it. I must tell you, all of these posts in my extra special 40 birthday post extravaganza are very private...

Private convos I have with myself on a daily basis.

And I have to get to myself and fully examine some things.

When prayers aren't answered, is there a reason why?

Is it just not the right time for that answer? Do I have some maturing or growing up to do before it comes to pass? Do I have some bad attitudes blocking the way? Do I have bad habits in the way? Are there some people around blocking up stuff? Is my faith up to par?

Have I examined what's really going on? Am I being totally honest with myself?

Or am I sitting around mad at God because He ain't jumping when I scream and holler"JUMP!"

Do I have something in my hand (my heart, really) that I'm holding strongly to that I need to release from my life?

My goodness. That's too much to think about on this cold Sunday morning.

Or is it?