The Things That Are

I love when I open up my Facebook account and there is a TobyMac #speaklife image in my feed.  They are always so encouraging and usually I end up sharing them.  The one from the other day really struck me.  It said, "letting go doesn't mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be."  This struck me and I immediately had to share it but also write it down.

Sometimes in life we have to let things go - a relationship that is toxic to us, anger from being hurt, a dream we having been dreaming for a while - there are so many things in our lives that we hold on to and we usually believe that we cannot live without those things.  There is also the inevitable lingering in the back of our minds that if we let go of them then we have somehow failed, we've given up on the dream or we've given up someone.

Perhaps a better outlook is not that we are failures or not that we have given up but that God is maybe protecting us.  Maybe God knows that your relationship will never work because he has someone better picked out for you.  Maybe God knows you need to let go of your resentment towards the person that hurt you because that bitterness is affecting your relationship with him.  Maybe that dream wasn't right for you, maybe God has another dream he wants to plant inside you so that he will get the glory when it comes to pass.  Maybe you won't get that promotion because God is protecting you from missing out on time with your family. Remember that in Jeremiah 29:11-13, God says he knows the plans he has for us and that they will prosper us, never harm us - they are to give us a future and hope.

We are so quick to think that when things don't happen we have failed or that it is the end of the world.  Maybe we need to remember that God wants us to "accept there are things that cannot be" because in the background he is working on the things that are.