Letting Go and Letting God: A Prayer for Surrender

Smashed Dandelions in Sweaty Little Hands

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

Elisabeth Elliot wrote something that's haunted me since I first read it:

"If we had the least notion of his loving kindness and tender mercy, his fatherly care for his poor children, his generosity, his beautiful plans for us-if we had any inkling of all this, could we be reluctant to let go of our smashed dandelions or whatever we clutch so fiercely in our sweaty little hands?"

Smashed dandelions. That's what we're holding onto. That's what we're white-knuckling. Things that are already wilting, already dying, already far less valuable than what God is offering in exchange.

But we clutch them anyway. Because we don't really trust him.

Elliot nailed it: the reason we struggle to surrender is that our thoughts about God are paltry. We haven't really seen him. We've hardly tested him. We approach him with suspicious reserve, wondering how much fun he intends to spoil, how much he'll demand, how high the price will be before he's satisfied.

That's not the God of scripture. That's a projection of our own fear.

The real God waits patiently for us to turn to him. Leads gently. Prepares places. Orders and engineers and orchestrates plans for our good that we can't see from where we're standing.

If we knew that-really knew it-we'd open our hands. We'd stop gripping so hard. We'd realize that what we're afraid to lose isn't worth keeping anyway.

Here's the promise: It's not possible to lose, in any final sense, anything worth keeping. We lose ourselves and our selfishness. We gain everything worth having.

That's the trade. Your smashed dandelion for his beautiful plan.

What are you clutching right now that's already dying in your grip?