Let Go and Let God. Really?

Purposefully letting go of something or someone can be hard, even when you know it is the right decision. Watching your teen drive away in a car for the first time requires you to let go and trust. Leaving your first home requires you to let go in order to move on. Ending a relationship may be necessary, but it still can be hard.

The expression “Let go and let God” was introduced in the late 19th.century.  It means to surrender our circumstances, desires, and will to God. Micah C. offers this explanation:

“…To ‘Let go’ means letting go of your pride, of your desire for reputation as a holy person or a cool person, of your desire to be able to physically walk for the rest of your life, of your need for affirmation from others…Everything…

‘Let God’ doesn’t mean you release the steering wheel of life and expect God to do the driving for you. You aren’t letting go of the steering wheel: you’re letting go of the steering will.  It means you might not go where you want to go – not because God magically puts you there, but because He tells you to go there and you promise to obey His lead no matter what….”

“Let go and let God” is a common expression in Alcoholics Anonymous and all the 12-step Programs—here’s my recent overview. In Step 3, addicts of all kinds learn to let go of their illusion of control and surrender to their higher power:

Step 3. Made a decision to turn our

  will and our lives over to the

care of God as we understand God.

In Breathing Underwater, Richard Rohr describes the 12-steps as a path for the spiritual journey for all of us. Regarding Step 3 he says:

“Our inner blockage to “turning our will over” is only overcome by a decision. It will not usually happen with a feeling, or a mere idea, or a religious Scripture…..It is the will itself, our stubborn and self-defeating willfulness that must be first converted and handed over.”

When I “decide,” as Step 3 says, to surrender my life and my will to God, I must do this moment by moment. I once heard a quote that rings true:

I have no problem surrendering my whole life to God.

It’s the next five minutes that give me trouble.

It is unrealistic, in fact impossible, to  make a one-time decision to surrender our whole lives to God—we want to do this, but instead we face “trouble” in the “next five minutes.” The remedy is to make a decision to surrender to God this moment, then the next, and to keep repeating this process.

We cannot surrender the next six months to God any more than we can go

on a diet or exercise regularly for the next six months all at once.

But we can surrender today and then over and over again. This is doable.

Having a plan helps us stay faithful to our decision. We should set intentions, build routines, develop disciplines, seek accountability, and surround ourselves with support. But at the heart of it all is this: a trust in God deep enough to let go, moment by moment, grace by grace, for the rest of our lives.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Read the 12-Steps.

2. Letting go of absolute control of  “my” time has been a challenging part of my journey. Giving up some of my precious time for daily Centering Prayer has helped me better understand what surrender is all about. If you want to lessen your obsession with time and the clock, check out my experience with this meditative method of prayer.

Love, Donna

EXTRAS

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Dr. Donna Chacko promotes health of body, mind, and spirit through her website (serenityandhealth.com), her blog, her podcast/vlog series, “Engaging with a Messy World” and " “Pop-Up Conversations on Health of Mind, Body, and Spirit,” and programs at her church. She is the author of Pilgrimage: A Doctor’s Healing Journey (Luminare Press, 2021), a recent best-seller on Amazon, 2022 Illumination Awards Gold Medal Winner, 2022 Reader Views Literary Award Gold Medal Winner, and 2022 Catholic Media Association First Place Awards.