“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

There were plenty of good grapevines to swing on in the mountain. I remember one that would swing out over a gorge and then go back to the bank. It was fun until the day it stopped and would not swing back. Suddenly I was left hanging with nothing that I could do but let go. Finally, I released my grip and fell a short distance onto a hill covered with leaves and slid to the bottom. Funny how back then things seemed so much bigger and further away than they really were.

Letting go has always been difficult for me. The expression, “Let Go and Let God” is easier said than done for many of us. We once called it surrendering to God. Maybe that’s the problem: surrender sounds like defeat. I am defeated, I’m a sinner who can’t save myself, or I’m troubled with problems that are too hard for me to fix.

Have you ever felt like you were hanging over some deep gorge and there was no one to help? That may be the best place to be if it finally brings us to trust God. When we let go of our grip we will find that the hand of God is closer than we thought.

A very effective trick of the devil is to convince people that the gorge is too deep, that we have traveled too far down the road of sin, and that the invisible hand of God isn’t there; and if it is, it isn’t for people like us. “Many say about me, ‘there is no help for him in God.” Psalm 3:2

Faith is deciding to be among the ones who release the grip on whatever it is we are holding to, and knowing we are saved, and safe, in the nail scarred hands of Jesus. What grapevine are you clinging to? The depth of our troubles are seldom as deep as they seem; and the hand of God is always closer that we might think.

“Faith begins by letting go,
giving up what had seemed sure,
taking risks and pressing on,
though the way feels less secure:
pilgrimage both right and odd,
trusting all our life to God.”