Part 12 | Letting Go and Moving Beyond
Introduction
When this series began, I wrote the following: “What’s so hard about forgiveness? If you want to know the truth: Everything! From beginning to end it can be the most difficult process ever undertaken by some, very difficult by others, and a real struggle for all the rest. Forgiveness is foreign to our fallen human nature even though it is at the same time the absolute center and heart of Christian faith. Look at the world around us that lives on revenge and getting even. Here we are, thousands of years after the coming of Christ, and we still think we can solve life’s problems by anger and getting even instead of forgiveness and reconciliation. Will we ever learn?”
Now here we are in Part 12, wrapping things up and assessing what all this means and how it needs to impact our daily walk through life. If we have allowed God’s grace to take over and for His Spirit to be in control of all the circumstances in our lives, then it is indeed time to “Let Go and Move Beyond” what once bound us as the offended and the offender. In Part 11 with the journey of Margaret, grace allowed her to let go and begin moving beyond. That is what God wants to have happen to all His children. But achieving that is a work of grace many never discover. This does not mean God is unable to deliver us. It means, for whatever reason, we have not chosen to participate in that deliverance.
Letting Go
If offenses did not impact us, then letting go might be a simple act. But they do impact us. And anything that impacts us has within it the power we assign to it. It can be used of God to grow us up into Himself and to mature us in every way possible. We can also give it the power to undo us and make our lives miserable with self-focused needs for revenge and getting even. The offense cannot choose which it will be: that belongs to us alone. It is our will that gets exercised and determine which it will be. We may vacillate first this way, then the other, but our will is in control. The ultimate decision is ours and we will determine how it all goes. We can excuse a bad decision all we want and blame it on the offense, the offender, the enemy, or all the above. But in the end, our will has made the choice. Or, we can make the decision to turn it all over to His grace and find the God-given ability to let it all go. In the end, then, grace has won over all of it, to the Father’s glory.
First, consider with me what “letting go” is not as well as claiming what it truly is to be. It is not a surrendering of the will for any other reason such as “How would not forgiving make me look?” Or, “What will people think of me if I continue to carry a grudge?” Or even, “I just want out of all this as well as out of the relationship that has now been injured or even destroyed. He can go his way and I’ll go mine and that will settle it. I just want to get on with my life without so-and-so being a part of it.” Letting go needs to be because the issue has been resolved at the highest possible level and now it is time to move on to new levels of relating. If this is not the case, then any letting go is premature and possibly even immature.
Second, “letting go” is not giving up on what could be in its place. It’s a believing in what needs to be in place and continuing to grow together in that God-chosen direction.” It’s a dealing with the past to assure the present and to secure the promise of what God wants to see in place between us. It is not staying in the past, aborting the present, and ignoring the God-chosen future. If we cannot move ahead together, then we have failed to really deal with the past and present. Since God is in it, there has to be more for us both, and together.
Third, we are both stuck in the present until we are able to let it go as a finished event no longer empowered to hinder either the present or the future. We are going to take the power we had given it to add that power to His that will now enable us to achieve all He has for our future as well as for our individual selves. By healing what is past we are healing our present and our future. But the future cannot be all He wants it to be for either one of us until we have dealt with the past.
Fourth, letting go is accepting all He revealed to me about myself in my reaction to the offense and all He wants to share with me in building me up into Himself. I need to move beyond the old self into the True Self that is now fully under His control. Since the offense caused me to face certain things about myself this serves as God’s wake-up call to me to mature in Him. Now that He has revealed this about myself, I can never go back to perceiving myself as I once did. This is how He works all things for good.
Fifth, I am where I am today by the grace of God and not because of anything within myself, as humbling as that is to realize. Forgiveness is present because He has enabled me to receive what He was willing to give me and to allow it to reconcile and restore what had been lost and broken. It is all of Him. I may have partnered with Him in it, but He gave me the ability to receive His partnering in it with me. To God be the glory. How great is His grace.
Sixth, letting go is accepting the mind of Christ to see all of it as He knows it to be, and choosing to see it through His eyes, not just my own. My old self could never see it as He does, and until I learn to see it as He does, that old self is still in control. I am giving that old self power that should belong to Him alone. The Holy Spirit helps me yield up my will to Him. In my hands there will be disaster upon disaster. In His there will be wholeness and wellness and the freedom to grow up more and more into Him.
Seventh, letting go is to choose not to live in the past, to dwell on anything that separates me from Him, my True Self, the offender, and what He has in store for us together. His forgiveness is revolutionary. It is transforming within the offender and the offended. It is superhuman and it is all a work of grace. When we choose to live in Him and allow Him to live in us, forgiveness becomes a way of life – the Jesus Way.
Eighth, letting go is never keeping a score card of the wrongs of others (1 Corinthians 13). But at the same time humbling it’s owning and acknowledging my own wrongs against Him, others, and myself. Remember the story of the oyster dealing with a grain of troublesome quartz? How far along does it take in the development of the pearl to where the oyster can no longer remember the grain of quartz that started the whole process of pearl-making in the first place? With a focus on the present and what the ultimate goal is going to produce, the oyster has no thought of that grain of quartz any more. It is now encased in layer upon layer of a priceless milky substance that brings only promise and joy. A pearl is being formed.
Ninth, letting go is as easy as grace can make it or as tough as unforgiveness can make it. The heart that longs for it to be gone is both willing and able to let God take it. If you don’t believe God can take it and displace it with His own joy and peace, then you have never indulged in His grace and forgiveness. It’s only hard to let go when we choose to make it hard. Once we have found the faith and courage to place it in His loving hands, then He takes it to Himself, and replaces it with a special abundance of His grace and peace. We end up speechless; it’s gone!
Tenth, letting go is allowing God to “bury it in the depths of the sea….” As long as we allow it to hang around and haunt us, there can never be any real sense of peace. He has forgiven it and as far as He is concerned, once forgiven, it is as if it had never happened. By claiming His grace, it is gone for us as well. If its memory should ever pop up again, our heart handles it by giving it to Him and allowing His grace and peace to reign within us. Why bring it up ever again? It is dead and buried in His grace. Our focus now in solely on that grace.
The human hand is such an engineering marvel. Look at all it can do. But at the same time, it has its limits. For example, it can hold sand from a beach but it cannot pick up the whole beach all at once. Another limitation is, when it is full, nothing else can displace that sand unless the owner of the hand chooses to empty it of the sand then reach for diamonds instead. The same is true of the mind and especially of the heart. The sand is the offense; the diamond is the grace of God. There is no room for the diamonds until the sand has gone. Letting go is making room for the diamonds. And since the diamonds are so precious, not a single grain of quartz need be present.
Moving Beyond
Whose we are belongs to the reality of our being in Him and Him dwelling in us as our Lord. Think of the difference this makes within our faith, our beliefs, and daily walk in Him. We are His child. He is our Heavenly Father. We belong to Him because we are His in Jesus Christ. We no longer belong to ourselves. He bought us at the Cross. From that moment on we are in Him and He is in us. He owns my True Self, for He has paid for all my sin, has shared His forgiveness with me, and my eternity is now in Him. Therefore, I owe Him my all, and out of that I must claim all He wants me to become in Him. To realize that wholeness, I must learn to move beyond anything and everything that hinders that relationship to Him.
Who we are now that He has claimed us as His own means we are to continue growing up into His Son in every way, and that growth depends on allowing Him to take from us anything and everything that hinders that growth. If I am seeking to bring along baggage from the past that hinders that relationship, how do I explain that to Him? It is hindering the growth He intends for me, and I am deliberately blocking that growth. I have to claim His grace and allow it to move me to where I cannot go on my own.
What life is all about in Him is love and grace and forgiveness, and how He expects it to be lived out in obedience to Himself. This is life as He intends it to be lived. It cannot be lived on my own; it can only happen as He is allowed to live out His life from within me. This is why I must learn to forgive and to be forgiven.
Where we are going in our discipleship in His Name and why this journey is so important to us and to Him is because it means to live the Jesus Way. There is no other definition of wholeness and wellness. It is to allow His life to be lived out within our own. Of course we can move beyond when He is allowed to be alive within us. He is Christ the Victor, and He is present to share His victory with us. To be faithful to Him we must move beyond all that hinders our relationship with Him.
What baggage we are carrying from the old way is an absolute affront to Him and to His grace at work in our lives. If we insist on continuing to carry it, we do so in denial of His Cross and the redemption He died to secure for us. We must learn to let Him be in control of it all. His Cross is so our baggage can be forgiven and taken away. Where He stands within us is evidenced by the stuff we allow to be present and the depth of His grace we are willing to affront.
Whether we want to face it or not, we cannot love and serve Him and yet carry such garbage around in our own souls. And it is garbage. It smells to high Heaven. He knows it is present as well as we ourselves. We do not bury it dead: we bury it alive, and it never stops festering until it has been dealt with by Him. But He won’t force its removal. He will not violate our wills. We can carry it to the day He calls us Home. But as long as it is present, we cannot be in a right relationship with Him, others, our True Selves, or with life as He intends it to be lived. The price for such disobedience is more than we will be able to fathom this side of Heaven.
Life-lessons as God unfolds them for us tell us right up front that living the Jesus Way takes a Source greater than our own. Forgiveness is a supernatural action. We experience God in the process. God is doing us a favor by letting us know how we are injuring ourselves and our relationship with Him when these matters are not turned over to Him and His grace.
Forgiving all offenses is needed for none of them can compare with what we have cost Him. Our sin required the Cross of Christ for our forgiveness. We need to keep this as our focus when shifting attention to the offense of another. This is no easy matter. That’s why we must rely on Him for the discernment, motivation, and leading in how to handle it to His glory and to our own joy. A Chinese Fortune Cookie described it this way: “A person who studies revenge keeps their own wounds open.” Our healing is intricately involved in our ability and willingness to forgive. To forgive is to live the Jesus Way.
Once we have learned to walk the Jesus Way we will not be offending again and again for we realize the important and preciousness of relationships, first with Him, then with the offended and our True Selves. We are not willing to let that go for some offense against us when the cost to us, to God, and to others, comes as expensive as having Him relive His Cross. He died so we can have the power to forgive. We cannot afford to say by our lack of forgiveness, “Thanks Jesus, but no thanks at the same time.” “Nice gift, but I have other things in mind, like getting even, no matter the cost.” Where’s the logic in that? Is this not demonic?
Achieving our goal of becoming one in Him and becoming all He has called us to be is our top priority as a child of God. Nothing is worth allowing that goal to be sabotaged. Enough tears have been shed; enough pain has been felt; enough alienation has been allowed to cloud the sunlight of His Presence. It’s time to be free: to love Him, to be reconciled, to be healed and made whole, and to again experience the full depths of His love, grace, and peace.
To God be the glory for we recognize it is all of Him. Where would we be today without Him in our lives?
In Conclusion
If I knew then what I know now, how much pain and sorrow could have been spared. The grace-lesson I have been privileged to learn brings me to see what is the most important thing in my life: my personal relationship with Him. No offense can be empowered to take that from me.
The person I no longer am is the person He wants me to be; I thank God for the lesson learned and for the new me He is fashioning in His grace. Thank You, God, for the new me that is emerging in all this.
The person I am becoming by the grace of God is more the person I truly want to become. If only I had chosen to see this long ago. But here I am now, and I am learning to trust Him and His grace for all of life. I am allowing Him to be in control of my life. For the very first time I am beginning to realize my true freedom is in being bound to Him, and to Him alone.
The journey that counts most is that of growing up into Him. As I grow it shows in all my relating, especially to Him, but also to all others. The offenders along the way are not my enemies unless I choose to make them such. He gives me the strength to make that choice. I have the power, given me by Him, to draw a circle in the sand that includes and does not exclude them. This is how I know His grace is at work in me. The same grace keeps me from offending others. If an offense occurs, true repentance, contrition, confession and restoration are close behind.
I’m still growing and will to the day God calls me Home. Like Paul, I’m not there yet. Some days not even close to arriving. But at least now I know what God has to share with me. I live and share each and every day in Him knowing His best is yet to come…!
Dr. Emil J. Authelet
eauthelet@cox.net
Ministering to God's Forever Family 
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