Can I "Let Go"? Can I "Let God"?
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Over the past few weeks, I have been focusing on themes of healing, and it has not been by accident. As June has been designated PTSD Awareness Month, I have been deliberately focusing my selection of Bible verses on ones that carry a mental or emotional health dimension.
While I generally tend towards a certain cynicism about such designations, I do believe there needs to be greater awareness about mental health issues such as PTSD, and if calling the month of June PTSD Awareness Month helps raise that awareness, I’m going to get behind it.
The results have been…interesting to say the very least.
My posts these past few weeks turned out more personal than I originally intended. As I was writing them, I quickly realized that to avoid the personal element would have watered down what I wanted to say.
When it comes to my faith, I have questions and I even have doubts. In many ways, I am still working out what exactly it is that I believe. Spiritually, I am very much a work in progress!
Perhaps a complicating factor is that I have lived a life. I have lived a full life, a life filled with both triumph and tribulation. I carry the psychic scars left behind by both.
For better or worse, I am a thinking man. I like to ask questions, and I like to chase after answers. When it comes to questions of faith this can be both a blessing and a curse.
It is a blessing as it moves me to inquire further and delve deeper than I might otherwise.
It is a curse when each seeming answer leads to more questions!
I find that to be doubly frustrating. Not only do final answers prove rather elusive, but it is difficult to reconcile a habit of constant questioning with the promise of spiritual peace held out as the recurring promise if we will but give our concerns over to God.
In the above passage from Phillippians, in the first letter of Peter, in Romans…again and again, the Apostles encourage us to simply let go of anxiety and worry, to let God work His will as He will. Even Jesus had His admonition that we should, to borrow the modern vernacular, “let go and let God.”
But is that even possible? Can any of us realistically let go of all our worldly concerns and simply let God unfold the universe however He will?
Can we stop doing it? Can we stop striving? Can we stop acting? Can we put forth no effort?
Can we expect to have any good outcome if we do simply stop doing, and acting, and striving?
That hardly seems likely.
Even worse, it hardly seems Biblical. Jesus Himself taught that we should let our light “so shine before men”—hardly a call to inaction or even spiritual lassitude.
For every Bible verse counseling us to simply “let go and let God”, there is a Bible verse calling us to take action—to do and to strive and to never stop.
How do we put aside anxiety and still be the light shining before men? How is that even possible?
Surely it must be possible, for otherwise the Bible is presenting us with contradictory teachings—and that is not a sustainable proposition. There must be a reconciliation. Faith alone demands a reconciliation.
If there is to be a reconciliation between these seemingly divergent teachings, then this much is clear: whatever else unfolds, we must remain able to choose, to act, to do. Whatever else unfolds, we cannot ever be paralyzed or rendered immobile by anything—not fear, not doubt, not pain, not any kind of suffering. Whatever else unfolds, we must always be choosing, acting, and doing.
There is zero doubt about this. We are absolutely called to choose, act, and do.
Necessarily, therefore, however we are meant to “let go and let God”, it cannot involve inaction. It cannot involve not choosing.
If letting go and letting God cannot involve “not choosing”, then it must therefore involve “choosing”.
It must therefore involve acting. It must therefore involve doing.
This is perhaps the best coda to these June postings that have sought, however imperfectly, to speak about the spiritual dimensions of at least my own mental and emotional health challenges.
I’ve grappled with PTSD. I’ve struggled with depression. In many ways, I still do.
I am constantly searching for some semblance of inner peace. Some days I find it, and on other days it proves elusive.
Yet regardless of whatever struggles I have on any given day, I still have a life to live. I still have choices to make, actions to take, and things to do.
I still have to make the right choices and take the right actions. I still have to somehow figure out what those are (and that is not always a simple or straightforward thing).
Peace or no peace, I cannot let fear or doubt paralyze me.
Peace or no peace, I cannot let any psychic pain or even the memory of psychic pain become a rationalization for inaction. Not only is that not in my nature, but I am quite certain that it is not ever the right thing to do.
I am not certain if that qualifies as “letting go”, but I am quite certain that, peace or no peace, what I am to do in any moment is make a choice, take an action, and do whatever it is I see to do in front of me. I am quite certain that, aside from assessing consequences to ensure I am making a good choice, fretting about what comes next is not productive, and not at all helpful.
I am quite certain that God is going to unfold the universe however He will, and I am equally certain that means I am to do whatever God has called me to do.
Can I “let go”? Probably not in any way that removes any sense of anxiety or emotional turmoil.
Can I “let go” enough to move past the anxiety and emotional turmoil and do whatever it is that needs doing? On most days, I can—and when I do I generally find my anxieties lessened.
Does that count as “letting God”? I hope so. I believe so.
Can you “let go” and push past whatever anxiety is holding you back? I hope you can.
Can you “let God” unfold the universe by doing whatever it is God has called you to do? I pray that you will.
And I pray that by choosing, acting, and doing whatever it is God has called you to do, your anxieties are lessened and you find some semblance of inner peace. In every instance, that is the best of all possible outcomes.
First, let me say again what an excellent writer you are, Peter. You succinctly nail your concepts and intents with every word. Perhaps someday you will feel called to write best-selling self-help books - perhaps all you’ve lived through is preparation for that.
Regarding today’s post, the constraint you’re wrestling with has been termed ‘resistance’. Have you followed at all the new-age ‘manifesting’ craze of the past twenty years? It’s based on the findings of quantum physics, and it works essentially like this:
A person desires some outcome, so he puts his ‘intention’ (for many people, a prayer) out into the universe. Then he ‘lets go’ (lowers his resistance to what actually transpires, - I.e. accepts the will of God. If his intention is in alignment with the will of God - because we co-create with God (however you conceptualize Him) - then the quantum wave function collapses into the outcome you desire (your prayer is answered).
The problem is, this doesn’t work most of the time for most people. The reason is that it truly IS difficult to have NO ‘resistance’, to be accepting of any outcome. If we desire something so much that we pray for it, it’s pretty hard to not experience ardent desire for it, right? It comes down to ‘trusting’ that God has the best outcome planned for you, which is why the manifestation people advise that you end each intention with words such as “this, or something better for all concerned”.
You’ve studied Zen, and know a whole lot more about it than I do. But as I understand it, much of Zen focuses on letting go of desire, attaining ‘no-mind’, and attaining the state of just ‘being’. This is the state of truly ‘accepting’, with no resistance to ANY outcome, even death. It’s difficult to attain, but it’s why the Bible has so many passages admonishing believers to ‘trust the Lord with all of your heart’.
So yes, take action! Make plans, develop habits to achieve your goals, strive with all of your might - but don’t worry about the ‘pathways’ to your intention, the ‘hows’. (This has been called the ‘cursed hows’ because it’s SO DIFFICULT not to fret about ‘well, HOW is this going to happen?’). And don’t stress about the outcome. The spiritual goal is to reach a point where, emotionally and psychologically, you are REALLY okay with ANY outcome. The outcome you wish is just a ‘preference’, not a ‘need’.
If your new ministry fails - you’re okay with that outcome, because you trust that God therefore has something better in mind for you! If your mind rebels - with resistance - saying, “No, it MUST succeed!”! then you have resistance, and your intention is not ‘in alignment’ with God, because you’re not ‘trusting’ (however that works, in the quantum-physics view of collapsing the wave function).
By all means, be clear about what you ‘prefer’ to happen in your life, and take action to achieve it -the more action the better. (As people used to say, “God helps those who help themselves”.). But try to eliminate stressful feelings about the outcome, because if you’re FEELING optimistic and happy about your actions, then you’re sending a ‘frequency’ of trusting God with the outcome.
I’m condensing stuff, but you grasp the main concept. Your intention is a PREFERENCE, not a NEED. FEEL happy. ‘Miracles’ can occur if you’re truly trusting God with the outcome.
Let me give you an example from my life. In 2008, my mother-in-law passed away, leaving us enough money to buy a better house, as a cash buy. I soon started looking at houses, fell in love with one, and wanted to get it - but my husband was not ready to buy anything yet, as the estate was still going through probate. I was very disappointed, because I loved that house and fretted that I would never find anything better, or at a better price. But I ‘accepted’ the outcome, and put the whole house-hunting project on a back burner of my mind. A few weeks later, what turned out to be a better house for me - in ways I was not even aware of - came on the market. My husband agree to look at it, but still was not ready to buy. I worked at ‘accepting’ that, psychologically - trusting the Universe.
Now, this was during the ‘mortgage meltdown era’ of 2009. The owner of the house I wanted to buy had priced the house way too high for the market conditions, had to reduce the price repeatedly, and it remained unsold until it finally went as a ‘short sale’ - so we ended up buying it for $55,000 less than when we first looked at it! I got the best house for my needs, at the best price possible, and I believe it’s because I reduced my desire to just a ‘preference’, and trusted that God had the best outcome in mind for me.
Somehow, it’s all about being on a trusting ‘frequency’ in your feelings, feeling at peace with ALL that God has in mind for you. You have a superior intellect, Peter, and a rational, analytical brain that wants to figure everything out (and is really good at this!) But forget about the ‘cursed hows’ and FEEL happy and at peace. Everything will work out for the best, in ways that you maybe aren’t able to see in advance, if you can ‘trust the Lord with all of your HEART.’
Good read and I can relate to a lot of it. Linking as usual @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/