Letting Go - How do you know? (article) by Kathy A. E. Jones on AuthorsDen

This is an article on knowing how and when to let go. Letting Go – How do you know? © Pastor Kathy Jones 1/2008 In life it’s hard sometimes to understand where our own feelings are leading us. While there are so many easy yeses or no’ there are equally as many “which ways do I go.” When the decisions we make seem to only have outcomes which will affect us personally we don’t mind an occasional mistake. But when we are dealing with decisions which can potentially be dangerous for other we love or who have entrusted their life dreams and goals to our professional expertise it becomes a little more difficult. Hopefully we’ll make these types of decisions with much more caution. For example a good friend wants your opinion on weather or not she should leave her husband of 25 years. If she had asked if you would leave your husband of 25 years you wouldn’t need to give it much thought. The reason being because you’ve already decided weather your husband is a “keeper “ or a “leaper” ( someone who you know has the leap frog mentality of jumping from one relationship to the other without a serious though of what commitment really means.) But the question wasn’t about your husband it was about her husband. You worry that she might be the “forgiving” kind. As soon as the wind blows with the sweet fragrance of fresh cut roses and the “please give me another chance” box of Fannie Mae chocolates show up, she will melt like the butter on an ear of hot sweet corn. Or just by chance you already know that she’s the kind which will still be talking about what husband #1 did twenty five years into her relationship with husband #2. It won’t matter that you have observed for yourself their relationship for the past 20 year. You were the one she came crying to for encouragement and counseling each of the four different times she found out her husband had had extramarital affairs. This did not include the separate times she mentioned how devastated she was by the fact that he had also infected her with two bad outbreaks of STD’s. You ask yourself what makes a woman need a man so badly in their lives that they can’t even think on the possibility that they just might be happier alone or at least in a non committed relationship. What makes a woman continue to stay in relationships that are abusive physically, mentally, or emotionally? Yet here she stands waiting for an answer from a trusted friend or a professional confidant! Because we are not God, for He alone knows the future, it would be good to start at the top and work ourselves downward to the path of “what should be done.” God has all the answers to our problems and questions. Believe it or not He delights in helping us in our time of need. So the first step in helping this friend to know for sure weather or not she should leave her husband would be to find out what God would say about her situation. Sometimes it is not as cut and dry as many would want us to believe. Saying to a friend that “God hates divorce” when clearly she have been living as if she were legally divorce for a long time, is like pouring salt into an open wound. Telling her what you would do if the situation was “yours” only assumes that she grew up in your skin and was affected the same way you were by all the emotional baggage that you’ve brought with you up to this point in your life. Letting go becomes the only real choice that you or your friend would have. She needs to let go of all the fear she has surrounding her ability to survive alone. God is not asking her to go at it alone. He is however asking her to trust in Him alone. She should make her choice a matter of serious prayer. God has promised to give wisdom to those who will ask Him. James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. KJV While scripture is clear on the choices that we have when a person has violated the marriage vowels through adultery, it is equally as clear on our walking in direct obedience to what God is telling us to do at any specific time in our lives. Matt 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. KJV 1 Sam 15:22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. KJV What if, this good friend of ours is truly free to leave her husband because of the four adulteries he has committed already? Or what if God is telling her that He is working on all the junk in her husband? He is cleaning him up so that they would have a powerful ministry in the future if she will just be patient. You say that God would never say that but he did to Hosea concerning his wife. Hosea 3:1-3 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. 2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley: 3 And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee. KJV On the other hand you must also be willing to let go. As a trusted friend or a professional confidant you must be willing to let go of your fears of telling the truth as you see it at that time. You must be true to yourself and to the God that you serve. Scripture puts it another way: Prov 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. KJV It doesn’t matter if it’s a good friend coming for help or you are working through your own personal issues. Knowing when to let go starts and finishes with one’s ability to not operate in fear but in the wisdom of Gods word and the power of being true to your self.
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