Addendum

I was very glad to have finished my last blog. I'd been thinking about it for almost a month, so finally getting it off my mind was a relief. Maybe something like shooting a baby down the birth canal after its due date is past. Maybe not as painful, but you get the idea.

Today I'm not going to write much myself; I'm going to quote. Yesterday (the day after I wrote "The Hardest Part") I read a chapter in Richard Foster's book Prayer called "The Prayer of Relinquishment." As I read, I realized that relinquishment was exactly what I had been writing about. And that at this stage of my life I am in the middle of a struggle to relinquish more to God than I ever have before.

In honor of the divine coincidence I am going to share a few thoughts from Foster, a man far wiser and more profound than me.

"This picture of a person falling into the arms of Jesus with a thirst-quenching sense of 'ahhh!' is, for me, a perfect image of the Prayer of Relinquishment. It is the mental icon I want you to hold onto.

We must not, however, get the notion that all of this comes to us effortlessly. That would not even be desirable. Struggle is an essential feature of the Prayer of Relinquishment. Did you notice that Jesus asked repeatedly for the cup to pass? It was no simple choice or quick fix. Jesus' prayer struggle - replete with bloody sweat - lasted long into the night. Relinquishment is no easy task.

The Prayer of Relinquishment is a bona fide letting go, but it is a release with hope. We have no fatalist resignation. We are buoyed up with a confident trust in the character of God. Even when all we see are the tangled threads on the backside of life's tapestry, we know that God is good and is out to do us good always. That gives us hope to believe that we are the winners, regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish." (italics mine)