Let Go, Let God

Whenever I hear these words I’d say, “Of course! That’s what Christians would do but one must do their best, then God will do the rest.” I think many would agree to that. I’m not someone who would wait for a miracle when I can let it happen if I just act in the first place. As confident as I am, when I knew I can do it as easy as a pie.

When I was a teenager, we had a 3-day youth camp in our church with series of enjoyable obstacle course on the last part of the program. One of it was so unforgettable that it made my knees shivered and my co-camper even lost her energy to stand or walk after the exercise. What was it? “Mud Walk” You had to hold and grab the rope while being blind folded, keep down and find the way to the exit with your team. The goal was the exit or, we thought so. We were eager, we had much energy, we had confidence; giving up was not part of the option. No retreat; no surrender! Well, exit is just around the corner. And we had already won other obstacles one by one. We thought we were in a maze and we just had to find the exit. Not to mention, mud is weighing our feet down the ground. Little that we know, we were just circling round and round for almost an hour leaving us totally worn out.

How did we win the game? Well, just by shouting, “I can’t do this anymore, I surrender!”. This exercise made me understand, Let go, let God. Okay, only a pinch of it. I know, we should surrender everything to God including things that weigh us down just as plain as that.

But mere mortal human beings are so proud of themselves thinking little problems can be solved by their own strength, don’t you think? Forgetting what the bible taught us about, “Apart from me, you can do nothing”. (Jn 15:5). Don’t try to be in denial and say, I prayed before doing things. Yeah, but you were thinking on what to do before you prayed. You planned ahead, isn’t it right? We love to be in control. We can’t stand uncertainties. It makes us anxious. 

Is it wrong to find solutions? Are we not trained to be independent all these years? Can’t we say, at least I tried my best? With that simple illustration, I should have learned. But no, simple exercises won’t work for a rock-stone head like mine or yours.

I went back to school for another course. I had to make a proposal to finally finish my schooling. As luck would have it, I had enough experience of making proposals. I reviewed and crafted hundreds of proposals approved that I may say, I’m quite confident of it.

But to my surprise, none of my proposals worked. And, I haven’t received any acceptable reason for trashing out my proposals. I had no idea what went wrong since the process went through smoothly. Instructors can’t verbalize what they want; no suggestions, just criticisms. I was like fighting current on a flowing river. I went on and on, one proposal to another but none of it worked. They rejected everything I presented for no significant reasons.

Familiar, it was like when I went circling round and round holding the rope. Same feeling of confidence when I started the game. The exact feeling of exhaustion as of that moment. And my conversation with God went on like this, “Isn't it your plan for us is to make us prosper? Do you not want me to finish my studies? Is it not your will? Am I doing it all wrong? Ok, I’ll rest the case on your lap. I have done everything already. Do as you please. I surrender”.

A month before graduation while enjoying the pool and have already forgotten about school, I got a phone call. Someone called me to get ready for the graduation. So, I went back. My colleague told me to approach someone to get an idea of what proposal to make. We had a little chat; he suggested a topic and he wanted me to present the new proposal by tomorrow. But there wasn’t enough time so I presented it the next day. A full-blown proposal in one and half day, slight revision on this and that. After that, I presented it to the rest of the panelists. There were still comments but along with it, I silently prayed. The Lord’s leading was there. A soft voice told me to talk to a specific person one by one in a chronological order. The voice was right because the recommendation of the first one was trusted by the next person I had to talk to and down to the last to finalize my work. I was totally amazed. I finished the book in a short period of time and graduated.

My story could have been yours too. Easy or hard situation, present it to God. Don’t make Him your last resort. It could have been a lot easier if I surrendered earlier. Do not plan ahead then pray. Instead, pray and He will lead you what to do. Let go, let God.