Letting Go

“Perhaps Jesus’ ultimate act of faith was not so much in coming to earth as in leaving it. After a lifetime of preparation and only three years of implementation and training, he had to look at his mission and then let it go. “It is finished,” he said in his dying breath. And then he let it go.

When you have done everything humanly possible — with a project, with a business, with a relationship — then the only thing left to do is to let it go.

In one of the movies about Indiana Jones, he and his father are pursuing the Holy Grail. After many adventures and heartaches, Indiana is finally at the precipice —about to grasp the very item he and his father have been searching for. And yet, so precarious is his position on the cliff that his father realizes if Indiana retrieves the grail, he will lose his balance and fall into the pit below. As Indiana is about to lift up the prize, his father whispers, “Let it go.” There is a long pause, and you can see the anguish in Indiana’s face. Have they come all this way for nothing? Can’t he finally grasp “the treasure they’ve been searching for? Can’t he finally make his father proud of him? Another second passes, and his father takes his arm and says more firmly, “Indiana, let it go.”

“Indiana does as he is instructed, and the audience gasps. It is so un-Indiana like — so un-American, so un-Hollywood — that they should come all this way for nothing. And yet almost instantly the audience begins to realize that the trip wasn’t about getting the grail. It was about spending time together on the journey — about being all tied up and facing death together and emerging with a stronger relationship. That was the prize.

I wonder how often God is whispering to us “Let it go.” Just as in the movie, our Father has been with us on the journey and perhaps is trying to tell us that, in this particular circumstance, to grasp the prize might cause us to lose our balance and tumble into a pit. It is then we can feel Him tugging at us, whispering “Let it go. It is finished. Let it go.”

Jesus let it go.