Letting Go

If you try to run with a weight attached to your feet, it is going to drag you down and eventually trip you up. In my morning devotion one day, the Lord dealt with me about holding on to offenses. You know how it is...you think you have moved on but then something tests you in the area of forgiveness and you realize you may have moved, but somebody forwarded the mail. I have learned in my own life that letting go is a process and it takes time. How much time is dependent on the depth of the offense and your willingness to drop the charge and stamp the debt owed to you voided. One thing is for sure, although I may be helpless to do anything about the individual or circumstance which created the offense, I can make sure that it is not strapped to my feet - I need my feet free for my life's journey. I've learned that when something keeps popping up in my mind and spirit, that it is strapped to me and ultimately weighing me down. I've learned that when something weighs me down it is infecting my heart and in the end, it is going to move as a poison through my thought process, my actions, and my character. The key is, don't let it stay strapped too long before you find out that it is still there wrapped around your body part - or it will become a part of who you are! So... take a moment right now...take a deep breath...and just let it go...it is really not worth all of the drama, energy, and time that it has stolen from your purpose.

A Lesson from Lazarus and the Rich Man

People die everyday - that's for sure...but have you noticed that lately some of the biggest celebrities are dying very traumatic and public deaths? The impact of stress and trouble even on the wealthiest and most envied personalities is resulting in suicide, early death, and sudden death. It reminds me of how fragile life is and how worry can't change things one way or the other. It reminds me that much of what we spend so much of our emotional energy fretting over will work itself out if we learn to simply let go. But there is another lesson to be learned. And that is the fact that once this life is over, we still have life in eternity to live. What we do in this one has a tremendous impact on our next life. The way I treat my fellow man, my life style, the way I spend my private time (my character), even the way I spend my money, will inevitably come back either to haunt me or justify me in my next life. Many have focused on the fact that the biblical man named Lazarus was a poor man who lived in the alley of the rich man's house, and that when he died, he went to the bosom of Abraham while the rich man went to hell. Well, the parable of the story isn't that the rich go to hell and the poor go to heaven...the parable is that when this life is over, it is not over. The point is that everyday it is important to live one's life knowing that in the life to come we must give an accounting of how we lived this one. That means taking the time to treat people right, and doing what's right, and being kind to other human beings. All of us are going to die one day and death is a great gulf fixed so that I will never be able to come back and redo what I shoulda, coulda, woulda. Now is the time to live life with a gentle spirit toward all..and to learn to simply let go of what I cannot change.