Let GO already!

As I sit here staring at my monitors.. (yes, plural) I contemplate the pros and cons of wiping my laptop clean. Not knowing that much about the hardware of technology, I'm unsure as to what to do. I have to move my backed up files back to the now-fixed laptop, fresh from the "computer garage" and don't know how to do it.





Smiling, I can't help but to compare this to my life in Christ. Remembering back several years ago, when God showed me the difference between the Old Covenant and the New, and how I'd been trying to live in both (unsuccessfully, I assure you!) I had a hard time letting go of the old. For years, the old way of life was what I knew, and for a while, it made sense. Of course life wasn't that bad--living under the roof of my parents growing up, my hardest choice was deciding what to wear to school. Never did give in much to the 'had to be accepted crowd". I'd learned a long time ago, that hearing impaired students live in their own little world. My parents raised me to be hardened against what others thought. What God thought mattered. Herein lied my problem. I didn't know WHAT God thought of me. I presumed His thoughts towards me were like that of any religious icon. I'd get 'atta girl's" when I did the right things, and Zeus' lightening bolt when I failed.

Life's trials and bad decisions soon opened my eyes to the fact that I DIDN'T get the proverbial lightening bolt after some of my bad decisions. What then, was the criteria of getting "Zapped by God"? How bad was I allowed to be before I got zapped? How good did I have to be before God was proud of me? These questions, compounded by personal heartache, drove me to my knees, and held me prisoner for around 5 years, until one day, God said, "It's time for a new start" Little by little, using the messengers He deemed for this purpose, He taught me why I had never felt the lightening bolt--it was because the punishment..ALL the punishment for ALL my sins were already taken--Jesus took every bit of punishment for me. If He took it all, how much was there left for me to get from God? None. What, then, would be my motivation for not sinning? This too, was revealed. When I became a child of God through faith, the Holy Spirit took up residence within me. He wasn't on vacation, waiting for me to scream "HELP!" in my moments of need. No, He is a very real entity that is leading, directing, growing, and mending my being. Finally, He revealed His purpose for doing all of that. He loves me. Simple, but very humbling. After years of trying to earn His love, to make Him proud of me, I learned that everything I craved, I already had, through the person of Christ Jesus.

Now, knowing that, would I finally let go of the past? WOuld I allow Him to reformat my entire hard drive of life, and let the Holy Spirit be the OS, instead of my own desires? My old OS life had been filled with viruses, breakdown, glitches, malfunctions... and was getting to be more trouble than it was worth. Oh yeah, His way of Life seemed so much more restful than mine.
Like the proverbial trapeze guy holding on to both trapeze bars, I was suspended in mid air; not able to swing back because I had the 'new' bar, but yet, not able to swing forward, because I still held on to the old. I had to let go of one of them. Which would I choose? I've decided to let go of the Old. I now reside in the New. It's the best decision I ever made. Moving forward in Christ.

I do hope this encourages you to let go of something. Let go of the bitterness of rejection, the hatred of revenge, disappoints of failure, and turn your eyes to someone Who has already demonstrated His love for you. It may not change your circumstances, but it will change YOU in spite of your circumstances.
God bless!