Peniel - Day 2...5:13am

Flipped open my little book of daily reflections to read the day’s entry, and color me unthrilled. The topic for the day? Let go and let God. Then of course was the reminder that I am supposed to pray only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. Further into the reading were these two sentences: “Because I find it hard to let go of these kind of worrisome thoughts and attitudes that cause me immense anguish, all I need to do during these times is allow God, as I understand him, to release them for me, and then and there, I let go of the thoughts, memories and attitudes that are troubling me. When I receive help from God, as I understand him, I can live my life one day at a time and handle whatever challenges that come my way.” How gloriously simple. I can go home now and warm up. But it’s not that simple. Not hardly.

First off, I don’t believe at all that all I should pray for is the knowledge of God’s will for me and the power to carry that out. Maybe my life would be simpler if I did. But I don’t. The model prayer I pray regularly, the Our Father, opens with praise to God, then, yes, for his will to be done, but it doesn’t stop there. There are requests for needs and protection and guidance.

And the same person who gave us that prayer got down on his knees in a garden one night, knowing full-well what the will of God for him was, and full of anguish, prayed for other options. Sure, at the end was not my will but yours, but the time that brought the drops of blood from his brow? That was during the hey, let’s rethink this idea, could there possibly be another way to get this done part. So, while I agree the end result needs to be your will not mine, show me what that is and give me the strength to do it, I don’t feel I have to keep my mouth shut about what I’d rather see happen. Besides, God already knows I don’t want to bear that cross, whatever cross it is, in the first place.

And maybe it’s just me, but I need a break from the enough help to get through life one day at a time. When I say to God during moments of “immense anguish” release me, and I get some relief that’s wonderful. But if I don’t get to the core of the problem, face myself, my fear, and whatever is causing the problem in the first place it will simply return to my awareness time and time again. It will pop up in new and interesting ways to torment me, while I go through the steps to let it go again and get through one more day.

Living from one day to the next, finding relief today with no clue if it will still be there tomorrow but knowing I can repeat the process if the situation crops back up, in my opinion, is spiritual poverty. Living paycheck to paycheck spiritually, never knowing if an unexpected bill or expense is going to hurt you. I don’t want one day at a time any more. I want security. I want a nice spiritual savings account, so that I know I’m covered.

All these things I keep giving to God and finding situations that trigger them again and again are simply symptoms of the real problem. I have a wound somewhere deep inside me. The symptoms of this wound that is slowly killing me are fears, insecurities, doubts, low self-esteem, loneliness, etc, etc, etc. I can give these fears to God when they pop up. I can let go of my doubts daily. I can release my loneliness to my creator for a nice daily reprieve, treat the symptoms and never ever heal. Because the problem isn’t all these symptoms causing me agony, the problem is the wound that is causing the symptoms. If I can figure out what the wound is and get that treated, then the symptoms won’t keep popping up for me to have to wrestle with letting go and letting God over and over again. It can be done. But I have to dig, and go through the anguish of finding out exactly what the root of the problem is before I can give it to God. If he simply takes the wound, with me having no clue what it really was because all I ever saw were the symptoms it caused, then I learn nothing from it, and gain no wisdom, knowledge, or experience in the healing of that wound that can help someone else. I need to see the puss-filled core of the wound that’s killing me. Then, I can let go of it and let God heal it. But this constant treating the surface anguish, the symptoms, and not what’s at the root of it, makes me have to keep dealing with, keep letting go of, the same thing in situation after situation. And that’s a big part of why I really wouldn’t mind dying right now. I no longer am satisfied with release from the pain of the symptoms. Even if it means I have to feel them a little longer, I want the healing that comes from uncovering and dealing with the wound.