Reborn 2 Write: Let It Go

The title of this devotion is “Let It Go” because that’s the lesson God has been teaching me recently. “Let what go” you ask? EVERYTHING!

My desire to control everything

My desire to know everything

My desire to fix everything

My desire to add my 2 cents….I’m having difficulty with this one

My desire for worldly stuff

My selfishness

My pride

My fear

My doubts

God is calling me to maturity in Him. It’s uncomfortable. It’s humbling. And it is TOTALLY AWESOME!

When I was a new Christian, I did a study on capturing negative thoughts. The premise is to realize that we are human so unfortunately we are going have negative thoughts but the trick is learning to:

Capture the thought
Pray about it
Then let it go

Only I could never seem to get past Step 1. I would capture the thought and then I would mull it over. Analyze it to death. Sleep on it. Talk to anyone and everyone about it. And then I would bury it deep down inside my heart where it would fester. Suddenly someone would scratch the surface of my wounded heart and the ugliness would come oozing out. Most of the time, my negative thoughts were justified. I’d had been hurt, insulted, wronged, or some act of injustice had been committed against me. Usually people who hurt us walk away without knowing they have caused any damage. Sometimes it is us who walk away without knowing that we have just left a bloody victim in our wake.

What God has been revealing to me is that the reason He wants me to let go of the negative thoughts is because they hurt me. The literally freeze my heart, making me incapable of feeling God’s unconditional love and worse incapable of sharing it. But beyond the damage to our hearts, the more dangerous consequence is the damage negativity does to our spirits. You see God can’t send me out if I won’t leave the Pity Party; where I’m weighed down with bitterness, anger, jealousy, selfishness, and worldly pursuits. These negative thoughts become shackles of bondage and God desires to set me free.

2 Corinthians 3:17 (AMP)Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom).

Recently, God has provided opportunities to teach me about the blessing of “letting go”:

Most of you know I can’t cook. Recently I made some nachos for my family. Even I can open a can of beans, pour them over tortilla chips, and microwave cheese. Well about an hour after we went to bed, my hubby woke up with a tummy ache. Immediately, he started accusing me of giving him food poisoning. At first I’m upset because it felt like a personal attack. No one else was sick so I’m thinking it was the hot dogs he insisted on adding to his nachos. Who puts hot dogs on nachos? So as I’m laying in bed listening to him moan and groan in the bathroom, I allow the hurt to seep into my heart and I start to blame myself. Thinking, “I wish I was a better cook. Maybe I did something that caused his stomach pains.”

My typical reaction is to turn the hurt into anger. I’ll stew and think, “I hope you’re up all night You Big Meanie!” You know what God put on my heart to do? Pray for my husband. I actually reached out my arm in his direction and silently prayed that the Lord would heal his stomach. That he would not have any further issues and that he would have a good nights sleep. And guess what? God honored my prayers. He fell asleep and was completely recovered by morning. He even nicely apologized. But even though the apology was welcome, I didn't need it. My heart was right with God so my Spirit was not weighed down with all the negativity. My spirit was inline with God’s Spirit. I’m spiritually growing up. Yay! FINALLY!

The second lesson happened recently when someone hurt my feelings. My initial reaction was totally in the flesh. I was hurt, angry, and I wanted that apology. But there again I captured those negative thoughts and went straight to prayer. And because God still has A LOT of work left to do in my maturing process, my prayers started out pointing fingers and wanting God to change the other person’s heart. Well, he ended up opening my eyes to the flaws in my own heart and gently and lovingly pointed the fingers inwards. I began to ask The Lord to forgive me and to fill me with His Holy Spirit’s grace and love. I wanted God to open my eyes to what was happening in the other person’s life so that I could react in compassion. (For that story, read "How Many Heartbreaks Will I Leave Behind".)

Sometimes we think that when we do the right thing, God is going to work in the people around us. That He will force an apology or that He’ll allow our desire for justice to prevail. But what I am realizing is that when we release our pain to God, He turns it into blessings. When we let go and let God handle the outcome, people around see God’s Spirit in us and they are drawn to Him. For example, the day my feelings were hurt I went home and used writing therapy to work through my conflicting emotions. After I posted my life lesson on my blog, I started receiving emails thanking me for posting it. They told me that they needed the message and it resonated with their heart and spirits. You see if I would've held on to the negativity, God could not have used me. And worse, I would have missed the blessing that comes when God uses our suffering for His glory and purposes.

I want to share with you some council that was given to me when I broke out with Shingles last year. When the doctor asked me if I was under a lot of stress my first reaction was, “Nope not me”. Then I realized that I had been burying emotional hurt and bitterness. When negative feelings would rise up, I would use all of my will power to push them back down instead of turning my problems over to God. I was trying to handle it in my own strength, which ended up giving me a very ugly, painful rash.

Here is what a ministry friend instructed me to do AND if, while I have been sharing this devotion, God has brought to mind a painful memory, a harsh word, or an injustice I want you to:

Shake it off. Literally, right now I want you to shake your shoulders and imagine shaking off the shackles of negativity. (1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22)
Exhale the negative feelings. Speaking out loud so that you are speaking in the authority of Jesus Christ and say, “God, I am exhaling my anger, my bitterness, my stress in Jesus Name I am giving it over to You to handle. (Psalm 37:8, Psalm 73:21-24)
Inhale the Holy Spirit’s Love and Power. Speaking out loud again, “God I am breathing in a renewing of Your Holy Spirit. Fill me with YOUR love, mercy, grace, and power in Jesus name. (Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 3:17). We all received the Holy Spirit when we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. But with this breathing exercise, not only are we relaxing our bodies, we also reminding our spirits that God is in control of our lives. We take the focus off our problems and ourselves and put the focus back on God who is able and willing to resolve them.
Repeat steps 1-3 as many times as needed… all day long if necessary. To be completely honest, I do this everyday. Yesterday during chapel, my coworkers saw me staring off into space with my hands lifted in the air...I was mentally doing step 3. Like I said, do this whenever you feel the need for a touch from God's Holy Spirit.

Feeling better? I hope so because I want to conclude by giving us a charge, battle plan, a Godly mission. You see the Church Age is winding down. Can you feel it? A new Pew Study* has revealed that Christianity is the number one religion being persecuted worldwide, with the exception of the Americas. But persecution is coming to America too. Our religious freedoms are being threatened daily because we are viewed by the world as intolerant, ignorant, and hateful. Jesus warned us that the world would hate us for His name’s sake (Matthew 10:22) That’s why Jesus told us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth but store up for yourselves eternal treasures in Heaven because where we store our treasure is where our heart is”. (Matthew 6:19-21). Jesus warns us not to be like Lot’s wife who instead of being led to God’s salvation and protection, she clung to the things of this world and literally turned to stone (Luke 17:32-33). God knows it will be harder for us to let things go if we put down roots too deeply into this temporary world. I think Jesus’ exhortation in the Book of Revelation is for the church of America today, “You have walked away from your first love. Why? What’s going on with you? Look how far you have fallen. Turn back. Recover your dear early love. No time to waste.” Revelation 2:4-5 (MSG)

When praying over this devotion, an image came to my mind. I pictured us as beautiful and colorful hot air balloons except that instead of soaring in the sky we were staked down to the earth with ropes. I feel like God wants me to tell you that He loves you. He created each of us differently for His pleasure (Rev 4:11) and He has an amazing plan for your life (Jeremiah 29:11). You've been given a unique and exciting flight plan but in order to fly you need to let stuff go. He is getting ready to ignite a fire in your soul. He is going to breath His Holy Spirit fire into your hearts and He wants to raise you up with Jesus Christ. But you have to cut the ropes to this world that are holding you down. He wants you to “let it go”. Let go of the past, let go worrying about the future, let go of disappointment, let go of hurt feelings, let go of pride, let go of the self-criticism, let go of your fear and doubts. God wants us to hand it all over to Him so that He can set us free to soar with Him in the Heavens. He wants for us to be a beautiful display of His Love and Hope to those that are hurting and lost so that when they look up in despair and see us they say, “I want to go where they’re going.”

I read an awesome scripture recently:

Romans 2:4 from The Message:

God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for a radical life-change!

So my prayer for all of us is:

Ephesians 3:16-19 (CEV)
God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that His Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in His love. I pray that you and all of God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.

Love,

Yolanda

This devotion is dedicated to my coworkers and was inspired by the song "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen movie.