Whiteboards
are remarkable. I saw the message and ignored it. When my friend filled in the
blank at the end I objected. Then I relented. What I thought was an empty
catchphrase became full of truth.
Some
of the cliché Christian catchphrases make me uncomfortable. I hear people
announce clever witticisms like W.W.J.D.
as if this is supposed to be a perfect signpost directing the right way to go.
I wonder how many people realize that they can’t know W.J.W.D. without a good
knowledge of The Bible. When I was working at a church one evening I had to ask
some people to leave, telling them that they couldn’t operate their loud
remote-control cars in the parking lot while a worship service was going on.
One guy leaned
over and grinned. “You know,” he said. “I’ll bet Jesus would tell us we could
stay.”
I
sighed and asked him when the last time he talked to Jesus was. It was probably
hypocritical because I don’t think my prayer life was good back then either.
What I should have told him was this: Jesus would probably suggest sell his
remote control cars and give the money to charity. I didn’t know W.J.W.D. Maybe
if I had talked to Jesus more often or read my Bible I would have thought of
that.
Yes,
I am just as guilty of misinterpreting these sayings. At our last Friday night
meeting there was a message left on the whiteboard from earlier in the week. It
essentially asked what one must do when agreeing to serve God. The sentence
ended with a blank line to fill in a personal answer. My friend wrote: Let Go, Let God.
I
objected. I called it out as just another feel-good catchphrase. To me, it meant
that someone can just make no effort to do anything. It sounded like someone
could just relax, like they were evacuating and letting go. Let God worry about everything, I’m just
going to sit here and do nothing but let go.
I’m
not sure what I felt was wrong about this except that it sounded like a cop-out
to me. Then I read over the lesson I agreed to teach that night. And right
there in the night’s lesson were
those very words Let Go, Let God.
Great,
was my first thought. I agreed to read the lesson out of the Leader’s Guide and
the leaders guide was wrong. Well, maybe I could still salvage it.
But
then I re-read what the lesson was saying. It was lesson 14, READY. And it was
all about submitting to the changes God would make in my life. Releasing
control over to God means allowing God into my life. Suddenly there was
context. Let go, meant let go of the
control I am so very fond of. Let God
didn’t mean let God go take care of things that bug me. Let God means to let God into my life. Surrendering things I hold
onto like pride, mistrust, resentment, and so many other things that keep me
from being who I am meant to be.
The
context made the difference. The empty phrase that looked like it belonged on a
license plate frame became the fuel in the tank. I taught the lesson and got a
good laugh from everyone when I admitted that I had learned from the lesson
before I even taught it. Like the whiteboard, the writing on my mind had been
wiped clean and replaced with truth.
It’s
amazing what some solid context will do to what one might think is just an empty
phrase regarding a Christ-centered walk. It’s not enough to pull out what sounds
catchy or even what sounds wrong in order to try to prove a point. And my lesson
that night, my personal lesson in addition to the one I taught from the book, reminded
me that partial surrender, like partial truth, is not enough.
So
I’ll share the question I’m pondering. What am I still holding onto that I need
to let go of and let God into?
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