Let It Be part 5
I want to change focus a little bit tonight. Which, granted, is a little bit strange to do at the end of a Rant series. But this is what's on my heart today: Sometimes you need to just let it be. Or, as the movie Frozen taught us, let it go. Because sometimes you just make things worse by trying to hang on too tightly. I've been Ranting about this a lot this year, I feel like, but sometimes less is more. It never does any good to overwhelm someone. I recently had someone tell me that I did that to them. "Diarrhea of the mouth" was the term that they used. To describe me talking them to death in order to try to help them. And, ironically, they said they understood why I did it because they found themselves currently doing it. But it didn't help when I did it, and it probably isn't helping now when they're doing it. Because its one thing to talk things out. But its something else to talk things to death. And, like I told them, the funny thing is that I don't even LIKE to talk. I like to be quiet. I'm a writer, I'll grant you that, but I'm not chatty. So if I was--and I can admit it, I really was--talking someone to death its only because I didn't know what else to do. So I went overboard trying to "fix" the problem. And I had zero success. So this is one of those times where a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. I can tell you from experience: too much is too much. Let me say it like this: If you try to shove Jesus down someone's throat... they WILL choke on Him. That's why people run FROM God instead of running TO God. Because we make Him overwhelming. We make Him too hard, or too scary... or too much. When what we should be doing is following Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." And did you catch that? God is exalted not when we try really hard to exalt Him, but when we be still and know Him. Not when we try, try, try. But when we BE. When we KNOW. Guys. Some things can't be fixed. Let it be. Let it go. And some things can't be fixed by YOU. The harder you try, the more frustrated you're going to get. The more you're going to torture yourself. To quote Princess Leia from Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." The more we try to control things, the less control we actually have. And if you're trying to control someone else... that's not love. Christ's love controls us, but we don't use it to control each other. So let me try to wrap this up with one of my favorite sayings: Know when to say when. And my litmus test on that is: Do your best and forget the rest. Love is giving everything you have and everything you are. Laying your life down for your friends (and realizing that you only have friends... and people who don't know they're your friends. Yet). But once you've given it everything you've got... its either enough, or its not. And either way you've done what you can do. So stop banging your head against the wall. Stop doing the same thing while expecting different results. If it doesn't work it doesn't work. Either try something different... or let it go. Let go and let God, right? Some things aren't meant to be. Or are meant to be for a season. Then something else happens. Don't try to force a square peg into a round hole. Don't wear people out by overwhelming them. Give it everything you've got, then let it be.