"Let Go of Living"

“Jesus said to everyone, ‘All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.’” Luke 9:23

A young child asked a woman how old she was. She answered, “39 and holding.” The child thought for a moment, then said, “And how old would you be if you let go?”

I wonder how much life we would actually experience if we “let go” of the “life” we expect imagined we should have. How much of our time is given to trying to prove we are right or deserve better than we have? In the attempts to justify our own actions we often miss much of the actual joy of living.

Following Jesus is about much more than being moral people, attending a church somewhere, and reading the Bible. In fact I know many people who can get very red-faced in anger over the way morals are slipping so badly, and I wonder why the seem to take that as a personal offense. There are many who will not miss a Sunday of worship, but choose the place they attend based upon strictly personal preference. And, don’t get me started about how many of us use the Bible to proof-text our personal assumptions.

When Jesus asks us to put aside our opinions and follow Him first, we create institutions that often keep us from doing exactly that. Our denominations tell us what to believe, people disdain those with a different view of end times than their own, and we will condemn homosexuals while being slow to classify abortion clinic bombings as terrorism. We jump for joy when the cigarette smoker tells us he has quit, but will gossip about him until he does.

It is not just about those “other” Christians, I suffer from the same disease. I want to be right so much that I worry for an entire week if I feel my strongly expressed opinion has caused someone to be upset with me. But I do grow weary of so much of your hypocrisy. We can’t wait for the Rapture and the Second Coming, but express little or no grief over those who will suffer terribly at the hands of the scenarios we think we believe. In fact, planes flying without Christian pilots who got “rapture” up to heaven, while the remaining heathen crashed to earth, have become jokes among much of evangelical Christianity.

How long does it take to learn to “let go” of what I think is so important? When do we learn that over the last 2000 years many believers who are much smarter than we are actually have varying opinions about many Biblical issues. So, why in the name of all that is holy, do we think that “this group” at “this time in history” are the ones to actually get every bit of it right?

Where is the humility? Where is the laying down of self? Where is the dying to my own egotistical viewpoints? And, truly, where are the ones who will say “no” to themselves? I long to see leaders of Christian groups become known, not for their opinions, but for their love. I crave something that will come close to Jesus’ call to stop living life for ourselves, especially when it is disguised as “God-fearing people”. I ache for a way of living that is entirely about following Jesus. I want to continuously to lay aside every bit of “me-ism” that wants to prove that I knew what I know long before anyone else knew what they know!

We are afraid to die, and we are most afraid to die to ourselves! We do not even trust the Jesus we say we follow to handle our own egos. We call ourselves “born again”, but we haven’t even died to ourselves yet. Sinners need grace, not know-it-alls. Bumblers need mercy, not self-made men and women who think they know how God wants to run the universe.

What would happen if we were to give these words of Jesus room to brew without our beings? What changes would transpire in people who could actually “let go” of their personal prejudices long enough to let Jesus change some of their opinions? Why is that that most Christians I know seem more settled in their views the older they get? I would hope we actually are letting go of more things, becoming more humble, dying to more and more of our own self-interests.

I hope that, by the time Jesus returns, or the time I die, I have peeled away as much of “me” as possible so that what remains is Jesus and Jesus alone. I know that isn’t completely possible, because I would then become another self-righteous person who no longer needed grace. Oh, my beloved Jesus, help me die to my desire for recognition and power, and simply trust Your amazing grace, now and till I die.