Once upon a time, Nephi Guymon (yes that’s his real name, check out @nephiguymon on twitter, he’s freaking hilarious) and I were missionaries. On a daily basis, we offered hope to people who would accept additional truth in their lives.
We often met with a lady named Brenda. (There are tons of jokes that go with that, Nephi knows, but today is a serious memory of her.)
For the record, Brenda was more than a little off her rocker–in our naivete, we chose not to see that immediately–and had her brain more than a bit addled by prior drug use.
However, she’d often tell us “Let go and let God.” She’d just repeat it over and over. As a grammarian, I never really got it. Honestly, I still don’t. It is a phrase that needs completing: “let God ___[what?]___”
I’ve been thinking about the phrase recently. I’m not sure I understand it much better, but perhaps if I complete the phrase with “let God be in charge” it makes more sense.
The last ten months have been an exercise in this for me. I’ve had about zero control over the course of my life, and that has completely startled me and left me pretty without hope. Many times I’ve had to let go of the control I wanted to exercise and just let God ______. Honestly I have no idea what He’s done with the control I’ve given Him. I may not know for a while. But I know He does stuff. That’s the benefit of leaving the blank space; something is happening; I just have to trust it.
Some things have surfaced, so I could see what He’s done and some of the purposes of my endurance (I hate that word: “overcoming” is my goal), but much of the time I’m left with a blank in the “let God _____” category. I don’t know what He’s done.
So I say this different than did Brenda. Her phrase was final: “Let go and let God.” Mine is open-ended. Let go and let God ______.