Travel Lightly and Deeply

This week has been such an emotionally draining week for me. It's been a week of dealing with secrets, truth, anger, forgiveness, and the hardest thing of all...letting go.

I was so angry yesterday. I hate being angry, it really takes so much energy and completely drains the life out me. Without going into too much detail, my sister and I were asked (if that's what you would call it) to give up something that is very important to us. Something that is rightfully ours, by a person who should understand what that thing means to us. I was so hurt that this person would ask what they asked, and go about it the way they did, I have to admit that I was so seething angry that I couldn't see or think straight. But as I was feeling this unbelievable anger something really incredible and unexpected happened.... I heard a still small voice whisper in my heart saying "Let it go."

I just thought "Let it go? What do you mean let it go?" Because let me tell you, I was ready to go to the mat for it. I was stubbornly prepared to hold on to it with a death grip. But I just felt God saying for my sister and I to let it go, and in the place of that thing He will be faithful to give us genuine peace and freedom. At that moment I was speechless by the amazing way I could feel God just working in my heart and softening my heart. I just felt Him saying "Yes, that thing is rightfully yours and your sister's, but you don't have to be bound by those material things. Instead you can just be free." I have to tell you when the realization came over me that I don't have to be bound by that thing, by material things, I felt an overwhelming, almost giddy joy come over me. It was seriously the strangest thing! I kept thinking "Wow just a second ago I was feeling seething anger now I feel complete peace. That's crazy!" All of the sudden I found myself praising God for that.

I just started thinking about how fighting for this thing would only get me stuck in the mud with this person-who has been stuck in that mud so long that there's barely any peace in their life. God lovingly let me know that fighting for it would be opening the door to their craziness and down that road I would find nothing but turmoil. I can either have that material thing or I can have internal peace and freedom, but I can't have both. Getting into the mud with this person would in essence mean I would become like them, and I do not want that. My peace and freedom is way more valuable to me. Plus these material things are temporary, I can't take them with me when I die.

It reminded me of how Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) once talked about how there's a plaque in the guest room of his home that says "Travel lightly and deeply". I love that! That's how I want to travel through this journey of living my life for Christ, lightly and deeply. Nothing weighing me down, living for way more than this world has to offer me. I can't follow Christ and be lugging a suit case full of earthly, material things behind me. It will only serve to weigh me down and trip me up. I have to let it all go and be free of it.

I told my sister what I felt God was telling me and even though she was just as angry as I was, she agreed that we need to obey God in this. So that is our choice in that matter, we are letting it go so we can be free. We're letting it go to have peace.

I told my mom what our choice was and she teared up and said she was proud of us. And as good as it felt to have her say that I know that it really isn't anything we did at all. This my friends was all the work of Jesus. Him and Him alone. And if the spirit of God is truly authentic and alive inside of me it has to still remain authentic and alive in these tough situations. I just know without Him our decision would have been different. Trust me, my flesh does not want to do this at all - but in my spirit I know it's right. I know my heart well enough to know that I would and could stubbornly fight for it. But only Jesus could soften my heart so much that I now feel like I can give this thing away with a willing and even joyful heart. Only Jesus. He's so amazing folks, He just never ceases to totally floor me with what He does. It's so incredible I feel like gushing.

So this thing is going to be a gift to this person from my sister and I. We're not giving it in a spiteful way, or in a self righteous way either. We want to give it with a joyful heart. Knowing we are not bound by such things but we are letting it all go to be free. There are too many things in this world that are worth fighting for, so much injustice exists in this world we wake up in every morning. Those things are worth fighting for, this however is not. I wanna be the type of person that fights for things that matter, not for things that don't. I want to fight for and live for what is eternal. I want to travel through this life lightly and deeply.