In the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana has finally found what he has been looking for all his life. It is a defining moment – not only for him, but for his father, who has been looking for it as well. In an attempt to carry the cup of Christ outside of its resting place, an earthquake results and the cup appears to be perilously close to being lost forever. After one of the members of the team is lost in an attempt to recover the cup, Indiana tries to reach for it while hanging from one arm tightly gripped by his father. But with only one hand, the grip is loose and his father cannot keep his hold. As Indiana strains for the cup, the very thing that represents a lifetime of desire and searching for him, his father speaks words that I hope will speak in your heart. “Indiana… Indiana, let it go.” And in that moment, what really matters was discovered.
What Indiana sees and understands is that his search for the cup is not really for the cup, but for his father. And in that moment, when his father (one who has also been searching for it most of his life) tells him to let it go, Indiana realizes that he has gained the person that mattered the most – the one who has fueled his search for the cup – his dad. And he releases the cup of Christ and rides off with his father. A new chapter opens in his life by closing the previous one.
The Father has taken me on a journey this last year where He has asked me to let go of many things.
• He has asked me to let go of my fear, not only of things I have not done, but of Him
• He has asked me to let go of my sense of safety and cautiousness – wanting to be certain about things before acting
• He has asked me to let go of my earthly father and my expectations of what I had hoped would be a great relationship and friendship with him.
• He has asked me to let go of my concept of Who the Father is; those concepts based on my earthly father.
• He has asked me to let go of some of the worldly things that kept me from having a relationship with Him.
• He has asked me to let go of my selfish desire to be alone and in solitude, and reach out to others.
• He has asked me to forgive and let go of the hurt that kept me bitter against Him.
I want to share with you two of these that were and in some cases still are important. The first is the loss of a relationship with my earthly father.
Due to circumstances too long to get into, I have had to separate myself from my dad. In doing so, I never went through the process of allowing myself to mourn that loss. I moved on and closed my heart down – trying to cover the wound and the desire that existed. And so it sat for over four years festering.
Last year at this time I went through some challenging times that brought me to the Point (and this Sunday represents my one year anniversary of attending here). God was so gracious to place people in my life that pursued me and saw something underneath my pain and disgust for God. At the time I was bitter against Him – but I understand now my bitterness with Him was because of my earthly dad. In February of last year, I wrote the following on the message board:
“It just goes to show that Christianity is yet another religion that illustrates the concept of the blind leading the blind. As someone who is outside the church looking in, the outright weakness of belief that has been illustrated in this discussion is yet another good reason for my decision to walk away from it several years ago. Why should I waste another minute of my time attempting to defend a book that there isn’t even consistent agreement in this forum, much less the church at large?.... I realized that I could not give Him all of me, and rather than walk the fence of a partial belief, it was better for me to leave it behind. Perhaps if you can’t be hot, it is time to stop being lukewarm, and start being cold. That at least is something God can work with.”
Yet Kara, John Thompson, Anthony, Kekoa, and many others reached out to me when my life began to change and God called me back to Him. What I have discovered through counseling this last year is the wounds I have tried to cover and make unimportant, and how they have affected me.
But the most important thing that the Father slowly tearing out of me is how I see Him. How careful we must be as men, and women, who are to be parents – as our role in the life of our children will provide them the first glimpse of Who God is. And my desire is that my children would hear their heavenly Father’s voice and run into His arms because of their experience with me.
And so He has worked on me, breaking the misconceptions and incorrect views I have had of Him. I saw him as mean, cruel, cold-hearted, black and white, strict, and someone I did not want to be around. After all, I had made the decision that my dad was not one I wanted to be with any more, and if God was anything like Him, then God was not on my ‘favorite person list’ either.
As I have learned to let go and leave some of my baggage behind, and work through the process of healing, many things have been helpful along the way. George MacDonald has been especially helpful to me in his book, The Curate’s Awakening, when he says:
“How do I know there is a God at all? And how am I to know that such a man as Jesus ever lived? I could answer neither. But in the meantime I was reading a story – was drawn to a Man, and was trying to understand His being, and character, and principles of his life and action. To sum it all up, not many months had passed before I had forgotten to seek the answer to either question: they were in fact no longer questions. I had seen the man Jesus Christ, and in him had known the Father of him and of me.
My dear sir, no conviction can be got – or if it could be got, would be of any lasting value – through that dealer of secondhand goods, the intellect. If by it we could prove there is a God, it would be of small avail indeed. We must see him and know him. And I know no other way of knowing there is a God but that which reveals what he is – and that way is Jesus Christ and he is revealed on earth…..
Your business… is to acquaint yourself with the man Jesus: he will be to you the one to reveal the Father. Take your New Testament as if you had never seen it before, and read to find out. The point is, there was a man who said he knew God and that if you would give heed to him, you should know him too.” (p.54)
And so I am in the process of walking through the gospels in search of Christ, reading, as Van Gogh read, searching for the man who wrote it. And through that, the process of letting go has moved deeper into my life.
Logically, letting go makes sense. But this letting go is something that occurs in the heart, not the head. How challenging it is to merge the mind with the heart. The mind can help though, and here are a few things that have helped me to let go of my ‘cup’.
It is difficult to let go because what is known seems safer than what is unknown. Healing brings new risks – a heart that is healed is one that can and will be hurt again. In our attempts to protect ourselves from being hurt, we leave pain in our lives to cripple the heart – the wellspring of our lives.
When I let go, I am not saying what I am letting go of did not matter or is unimportant. If anything, the first step in letting go is to admit the importance of the person or thing I am losing. In my case, I admit that a relationship with my dad was important to me, and hurts me that it cannot be at this time.
When I let go, I search for the desire under the desire – what is it really that pains me and what is it that really matters? In what ways have I been created with this longing and is there a legitimate way to satisfy this desire? Am I seeking to satisfy this desire through other means than that which is best for me? What am I after here – ultimately, a relationship with the Father.
When I let go, I admit and feel the pain and loss of the person, concept, or thing I am losing. I fully acknowledge the hurt and the loss. I feel, I cry, I weep; I enter into a time where the wound is rinsed and the Father can come in and clean my heart. I let Him in, I invite him to those corners of my life, and allow him to scrub them clean – removing the scar tissue (however painful) as He cleanses me and works in me the healing process.
When I let go, I usually do so over time – it is not an immediate process – and it is one that may be a daily surrender. Part of loving myself (knowing that love is patient) is giving myself the time to heal and grow. I find frequently I want to rush and be done – just quit hurting already. But it is important for me to keep in mind that it took time for me to be wounded, and it will take time for that wound to heal.
The time required can also depend on how long I have allowed the wound to go untouched and untreated. One of the mistakes I have made in my own wounds has been to attempt to ignore or dismiss them. All this did was create a false sense of healing and the limb which was lame never healed. Time does not heal all wounds; in fact, it can make them grow much worse.
When I let go, I am acknowledging the reality of life, the certainty of pain I will experience, and the willingness to risk again. There are not many things in life that are certain – we know about death and taxes – and we can add to that list pain.
When I let go, I find on the other side that what I was holding onto so tightly was not so important, and that what I gain is so much more. Of course a relationship with my dad was and is important, but I have gained a relationship with Abba, the perfect Father. And my Father is perfect and tender and good – all that I wanted and longed for in a Father. How many times have I missed the good things God wants to give to me because I have stubbornly or fearfully kept holding on to the things I thought I had to have?
MacDonald gave me a beautiful image of the Father when he says, “In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself. Therefore, I say to son or daughter who has no pleasure in the name Father, ‘You must interpret the word by all that you have missed in life. All that human tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness of love, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father – of the maker of Fatherhood.”
When I let go, I am being conformed to the image of Christ, just as He emptied Himself of everything for me. I learn to be like Him in remembering what is important – what was the most important thing from His point of view was the restoration of a relationship with us. God desires within the deepest parts of Who He is for us to be healed, free, and whole (because that is Who He is). Let go of the broken joint and allow the doctor to set it. Allow the potter to shape the clay, removing the roughness and edges that only serve to detract from the beauty he is planning to make you into.
What have I lost? I have lost (in this process of letting go) a picture of God that I think is incorrect, and more to the point, brutal. But oh what I have gained. It is a joy indescribable to wake up in the morning and reflect on the love and tenderness of the Father. It is amazing to know in the depths of my heart that He not only cares, but rejoices in my successes, and is right there with me in my weaknesses. His power is perfected in weakness.
What is it in your life that Christ may be asking you to let go of? Tonight I have shared with you some things I am leaving behind, and I can look back this last year and see the fruits of letting go. There is still much to be done, but it is worth it – and I look forward to growing to know my heavenly Father.
I want to leave you with a movie that I have shared with some, with Robin Williams called Patch Adams. In the movie he surrounds and envelopes with kindness a girl he is interested in by the name Carin. In the movie, we find that she has been abused – and in a poignant moment, a window in her soul is opened. “I hated men so much… and then I met you.” What baggage do you carry, in the form of people, things, or past experiences that shape you into hating or keeping you from drawing closer to His presence and the freedom He wants for you? Paul says it was for freedom that Christ set us free – and He wants your freedom – it cost Him his life to purchase it.
In my life, with the experiences with my dad, I can say.. I hated the God of my father, until I met the Abba of Christ. He has changed my heart, and He can change yours. Indiana, let it go.
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