Let God and Let God

Today’s message was written by Guest Pastor, Rev. Andy Odom. 

If I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. (Romans 7:16, MSG)

What does it mean to welcome Jesus into your life? Well, it’s like what happens when you begin a new relationship with another person. When you begin a relationship with someone, it is going to change you, whether you like it or not. After all, they will want to do some things differently. They won’t see things the same way you do. They will want to suggest other ways of thinking about something. Things will be different. So, if we are to welcome Jesus into our lives, we need to be able to let go of some of the ways we do things.

That is not easy for us. Many of us spend our whole lives living our lives a certain way, so we’re not going to let go of it easily. Quite often we don’t even realize how habitual life has become for us.

Richard Rohr says it this way. He says, “We are all addicted to our own habitual way of doing anything, our own defenses, and, most especially, our patterned way of thinking, or how we process reality. The very fact that we have to say this shows how little we see it.”

To welcome Jesus into our life means we need to practice what people in addiction recovery have to learn to do. We have to learn to let go and let God. To let go of the outcome of our day, our week, our month. To let go of the result of a business meeting or a family get-together. We need to learn to let go and let God. Fortunately for us, we believe in a God who can receive the very things we let go of, a God who can walk with us through it and comfort us in it.

Prayer: Dear Jesus, we want to welcome you into our lives, so help us to do that. Help us treat our relationship with you like with would with any other person, by letting go of some of the ways we think and do things and becoming open to how you think and do things. Help us let go and let You, O God. Amen.