Power Quitting

 M. Scott Peck said in his book, "The Road Less Travelled" - I'll paraphrase from what I'm hoping is still a fairly sharp memory, "Life is difficult.  Until you come to the place where you understand and accept that life is difficult, life will be difficult."  Read it again.  Those are some very good words.  Life outside of Eden is tough.  God told us it would be after we (yes, we) thought we could make wiser decisions on our own without him.  Life on the other side of the flaming, swirling sword guarding the entrance to paradise is chaos, difficulty, de-creation, decay, and ultimately death.  (Spoiler alert: that isn't permanent due to God's love and grace).  No, it's not all bad, but we invited plenty of it into our reality.

I've done enough circuits around the sun on this spinning mudball that I've experienced plenty of hard times.  I've lost a parent and a sibling as well as many friends to death, I've experienced lots of health issues, marriage and relationship failures,  business failures, financial hardships, the normal stresses and struggles of life as all of us experience in this experience of being human. Some of those tough times

During those times, your inner cheerleader kicks in, or well meaning people around you will offer what sounds like some good and encouraging advice like, "Hang in there!" or "Keep hanging on!" or "Don't give up!"  "Hold on!".

Sometimes it feels just like that.  We're at the end of the rope.  We're exhausted from the struggle.  The situation seems to be never ending.  It feels like the rope is slipping out of our fingers.  We hear the voice inside our head, "Daddy didn't raise no quitter!", "I'm not going to fail again!", "I'm a warrior, a fighter!", "Tough times don't last, but tough people do!".  All of that positive self talk gives us some motivation to white knuckle it a little longer. 

Have you ever noticed that when you're going through tough times, it feels like everything slows down like life is in slow motion?  Our hope is strained and our faith is put to the serious tests.  We question God's love, and sometimes even his existence.  All of that can tend to drain us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  It's hard for exhausted people to hold ropes.  We get to the point where it feels like we're hanging on by our fingernails and it's never going to end.

I'm going to suggest something that is going to sound very counterintuitive:  Save your broken and damaged fingernails (My wife knows how much it costs to repair broken nails) and Just. Let. Go.  Give up.  Release your grip. 

Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying.  I'm NOT saying give up on life.  I'm not saying give up on the marriage.  I'm not saying give up your health.  I'm not saying we should have a dark, fatalist attitude toward the very difficult problems we're facing.

What I am saying is, stop acting like it's all up to you!  Don't worry, I'm preaching to myself as well.  I would be a fool to think and assume that I've experienced some sort of quota of tragic and traumatic stuff that life throws at us.  

I really hate trite Christian-speak.  You know like "When God closes a door he opens a window" or "God helps those who help themselves",  or "God is my copilot", or "Let go and let God."  Nothing frustrates struggling people more than throwing out those overused and sometimes under-true "cute" sayings.  Again, well meaning, but not always useful.

When I was thinking through all of this, I realized that "let go and let God" is really close to what I'm suggesting here.  Let go.  Release your white-knuckle grip, and fall into his strong yet gentle, able and capable hands.  Even though we got the well deserved boot from the garden where we experienced his constant presence, protection, and security, he hasn't left us out here in the wilderness all by ourselves. I think he's strategically positioned below us when we're desperately clinging to our rope to be there for us when we're ready to say, "I'm exhausted.  I've tried doing this myself, and I can't.  Now you do it.  You take care of it now."  

Who gets the credit for the "win" if we successfully hold on to that rope with flesh torn, bloodied hands all the way through to a positive conclusion.  You know we can, right?  People have done it for centuries.  Sometimes it has a good ending, and sometimes it doesn't.  

I believe that maybe, just maybe the struggle won't be quite as real if we simply do what God wants to do so seriously and that is to help us.  I think he wants to walk through it with us; kind of hard to walk while we're hanging off the end of a fraying rope.  If we're doing it on our own we're not relying on him.  "Ok, I'm trusting him, but I'm going to hang on to the rope.  He'll help me hold the rope."  The times I've done that, I'm still leaving the door open for me to take the credit. 

My brother sent me a shirt he bought me which says, "I can't, but I know a guy."  That's it.  When we get to the end of our rope we're saying just that.  We're not nuking our own life or relationships, our business or any other part of our lives.  We're just saying, "I can't, but you can."  Jesus said, "you can do nothing without me." Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."  

One of the strange things about this upside down Kingdom that Jesus launched is that that there, power comes through weakness.  Not wealth, not notoriety, not brute grip strength, but by weakness.  Paul said in the Corinthian letter said, quotes Jesus as saying "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness."   So Paul's response was to celebrate his weakness so he could experience God's power.  

So letting go isn't quitting, it's simply a transfer of power.  Yours to his.  For that, I think God has a leg up.  js

Maybe the reason we wonder where God is especially in tough times, is because we are trying to tough it out as if it's all up to us.  It never has been, never will be.  The times I've wised up and released my death grip, I've experienced his peace, a calm I can't describe, along with reassurance that regardless of what happens he's got me, and an assurance of his intense love for me and an inner strength to face the giants.  

He really wants to love on us, especially through the rough times.  Let's let him!   FG