Hanging By My Fingernails

I have said “yes” to God hundreds, maybe thousands of times,

Each time going deeper,

Deeper into surrender,

Deeper into trust.

And I am looking at another thousand surrenders, a thousand more times I will let go and say “yes”

One “yes” was especially difficult,

The yes of surrendering my family to God.

I stood on the hub of a wagon wheel with my large family balanced on the rim. I crouched on the hub, frantically turning this way and that, grabbing all the broken spokes, desperate to hold the crumbling structure together.

God was telling me to let go

But I was frozen in fear, afraid that if I let go, my entire family would tumble down into the abyss.

I was trapped.

Yet, I realized that once again, my tension, my control acted like a wall, shutting out all life. My sincere concern and earnest self-sacrifice actually magnified everyone’s brokenness, by freezing everyone and everything.

Then a friend helped me realize…I was trying to save everybody

I was acting like God.

Stealing God’s job.

Well, when I heard it put that way…I was shocked.

Shocked by my arrogance.

Shocked that while I considered myself a committed Christian,

I really was a heathen at my core,

I was shocked enough to say “YES” to God one more time,

And experienced so much joy,

I wondered what took me so long.