My 13 month old son taught me something the other day... His lesson to me was, "let it go". Please do not mistake that for the Disney's Frozen kind of "let it go", after all he is a man, give him some credit. (Okay, to my point) Now that Brady is an expert walker with a full 2 months of experience under his belt, sometimes we like to take short walks around the block in our neighborhood when I get home from work. He LOVES picking up rocks along the way. Once he has 3 or 4 rocks in his hands he usually will not let go of them for any reason without some parental persuasion and maybe a few tears. This evening he was walking with his hands full as we made our way to a lot where a new home is being built. The driveway wasn't poured yet and it was full of these really nice clean big rocks. These rocks made all other rocks look stupid by comparison. As I pointed to the rock "gold mine", my son literally stood there with his mouth wide open and unclenched both hands simultaneously, immediately letting go of all of the rocks he had worked so hard to gather along the way. He didn't even watch them hit the ground. The old rocks were suddenly meaningless to him. It was quite funny actually. He had gained perspective. After a minute or two of trying to decide which rock he could even lift, he picked up one of the award winning rocks and took it home. It was an excellent illustration to me of how we can fight to hold onto things that we think are amazing that provide some sort of second-class fulfillment or satisfaction; a relationship, a job, a habit, a material possession, etc... but compared to what God has for us, even what might seem to be our best stuff is really meaningless in comparison. I'm not talking "prosperity gospel" here, that is crap. I'm talking the Jesus said "I came to give you life to the full" abundant-life on a heart-level kind of fulfillment and satisfaction. However, too often we cling to junk like it is diamonds, not realizing what God offers us is so much more. May we all strive for a faith that allows us to wisely "let it go" when we should.
