A few years ago the pastor at our Vista Church gave a sermon on turning over our cares, worries and problems to God. He used as an analogy how Moses’ mother had to build a basket, cover the outside with tar and place her son in it. Then she took him to the river and gently put him in, knowing that she would probably never see him again. How difficult, gut-wrenching and agonizing must that have been? How she must have felt as she left him there, a helpless baby, and then walked back home? As we know, she did it to save his life.
The pastor said that we all carry around baskets filled with things that we agonize over, things over which we have no control. He said we must put them all in a basket and put the basket in the water. Then walk away, trusting that somehow everything will work out. Not because of us, but because we have turned it over to God for handling. He suggested that in reality we all carry these baskets around with us. Sometimes we put them down, walk away and then the next day, pick them up again. Yes, I do this all the time.
What brought this to mind today was a lesson in our current bible study. The book is called “Rooted” which is also the name of the course. It started years ago in Orange County, CA at Mariners Church. And now the church that my Oregon son and family attend is doing it. I joined in. It has been pretty amazing so far. (Week four out of ten.) I highly recommend taking it if it becomes available to you. I digress. Today’s lesson was on “Surrender”. I am very familiar with that term as well as it’s contextual meaning. But am I very good at it? No! It’s not an easy thing to do. It means letting go of control of people and situations over which you had no control anyway. To stop trying to fix everything, realizing that you can’t and that most things are not yours to fix. Really? Darn.
When it comes to my loved ones it is extraordinarily challenging for me to avoid trying to ease them through difficult times, to help them solve their problems, to rescue them from life’s tough situations. But I love them! I don’t want them to suffer! Maybe they need to suffer in order to learn a valuable life lesson. Maybe God has a plan that is larger than my imagination that will help them grow, persevere and become something greater than who they currently are. Well, if you could just promise me that, God, it would be easier for me to do!
Maybe it has nothing to do with your loved ones, maybe it is something you are experiencing in your own life. But it remains beyond your control to fix it, after a certain point. And it is at that point that you worry, stress, suffer over what you can’t do. That is when most people turn to a higher power for assistance. If we could only realize that none of it is ours to handle in the first place. It all belongs to Him, if we are truly Christians. We still and always have free will. God will not interfere if we tell him we’ve got this, go away. He will go away. But if we get into trouble? Will He come back? That depends. But that is not my point today.
Put your little problems and your big problems in a beautiful basket. Put the basket down (or in the water, if keeping with the biblical analogy) and walk away, No really, walk away. Don’t look back and don’t come back late at night when no one is looking and pick it up again. Let it go. The hands into which you have given this basket are larger and mightier than you could ever imagine. Be brave and try it. God bless.