Let it Be

Excerpt from He Reached Down

“Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.’”

Luke 1:38

There comes a point

—after all the striving, formation, pruning, and burning away

—when there’s nothing left but to say, “Yes.”

Not a yes to an outcome,

not a yes to a role,

nor to some imagined future dressed in holy clothes.

Just yes to Christ.

—Yes to His presence.

—Yes to His voice.

—Yes to His will, whether I understand it or not.

Not a yes of ambition.

Not a yes of being chosen.

A yes of stillness.

Of finally trusting Christ

—without needing to see the map.

Let it be.

Not, “Let me control it.”

Not, “Let me understand it.”

Just, “…let it be with me according to Your word.”

Trust comes first.

The quiet kind.

The kind that sits on the patio in the morning,

Listening to birds without needing them to say anything profound.

The kind that no longer claws at meaning,

But lets it arrive

—in its own time,

—in its own form.

Then comes surrender.

Not defeat,

—but freedom.

Not resignation,

—but release.

The need to control is a refusal to let Christ be Christ.

 He—and only He—has control.

According to His word.

Not mine.

 Mine has no meaning.

This is the season I stopped

Trying to become

—and started learning

—to simply be.