Embrace the Future with Faith, Even When It’s Hard to Let Go

“Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).

Turning loose is never easy! We love the familiar, the warm, the comfortable, the known. The leap into the dark unknown, the uncertainties of what’s out there which you can’t see, makes the future foreboding and fearful. The budding high-wire artist has to overcome his fear of failure, of falling, of danger; otherwise, he never makes it to the big top. Picture the trapeze artist, poised and ready to take the big leap. He swings out into space faster and faster, but then at some point, he’s got to turn loose and fly through the air, reaching, stretching, towards the bar that swings toward him.

Turning loose is never easy! Frankly, we sometimes feel rejection when people who are close to us, ones we do love, turn loose. Picture the mother taking the hand of her little child to school for the first day. If the youngster sees other children and gladly runs to the playground laughing and smiling, the mother turns away, sad, depressed and dejected. She loves the feel of that warm little hand in hers.

Frankly, the day my eyes misted was when we saw our first-born daughter off to college. Yes, we were delighted she had been accepted in the school of her choice, was going on a scholarship and had graduated valedictorian of her high school class. But when she walked down the ramp to the plane she was about to board, it seemed we had crossed a bridge, and I didn’t like it.

Turning loose is never easy! For many, however, the difficult time to turn loose is when your daughter walks down the aisle by your side for the last time, with eyes glistening, focused on a young man who has stolen her heart. You say you have gained a son, but you honestly feel like you’re losing your daughter. The reality is many parents never do turn loose, thereby handicapping their newly married son or daughter. Remember, God’s plan is to leave father and mother and to be joined to a husband or wife in such a way that the two become one. Apart from the leaving, there can be no cleaving. A bride, a groom, and the mother-in-law—never make a successful marriage.

Turning loose is never easy! The most difficult challenge when it comes to this business of turning loose is the husband of fifty years with misted eyes looked longingly at the photo of his wife and had to say good-bye until he joined her on heaven’s shore.

When a ship sails toward the horizon and you are standing on shore watching her progress, slowly the mast becomes shorter and shorter and finally disappears on the horizon. “There she goes,” you nostalgically say. But the person in a ship far beyond the horizon, looking this way says, “Here she comes!” That’s why when it comes to losing someone you love, and you know that Jesus Christ has been the anchor of that person’s life, you never have to say, “We lost her,” or “We lost him.” Rather you can be assured that your loss has become heaven’s gain.

Turning loose is never easy! When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said that he sought “to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold” of him. In other words, he believed God had a purpose for his life, a will in all the difficulties and the challenges he faced. Then he said, “Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Turning loose is never easy, but to go on, you’ve got to turn loose and reach forth unto that which is before you. Think about it!

Resource reading: Philippians 3:12-21.