The difference between persevering and letting go

Recently my hubby and I had the privilege to minister to a dear couple facing financial and marital problems. I was blessed by the whole experience because I saw God's power in action. Most importantly, God equipped both of us with wisdom to point them to God's Word and to the finished work of Christ.

Yet in the process, there was one question in my mind: when to let go and when not to give up? Because I saw that both of them were either not willing or not able to let go of certain things like the hurts and pains in the past, the betrayal, the flesh etc. But the good thing was that they wanted to salvage their marriage. Yet this restoration work cannot be done by their own efforts. It has to be the work of God and God does not need any help on this.

So I asked God for wisdom to discern the difference between persevering and letting go and God showed me this. When God plants a desire or dream in our hearts, we should never give up on that dream. Because that desire came from God and He will be faithful to fulfil it. However, in the process of waiting, the flesh wants to help, to do something to make it happen sooner. That's when the heartaches and the frustrations come because all self-efforts are futile. We need to come to the end of ourselves to realise that we cannot help ourselves but only Jesus can and He will.

Usually the harder you try, the more heartaches you experience because it just shows you so cruelly that your efforts come to nothing. If your methods are workable, it would have produced results a long time ago. That is the point when you need to let go of your toilsome labour to the Lord. Because when the Lord tells you to let go as the battle belongs to Him, it is really for our own good that He tells us to cast our burdens to Him and find our rest in Jesus. He will fight the battle for us while we rest.

Even though I sat under the anointed preaching of grace for 2 years, I am still discovering the different facets of grace. Grace is undeserved and unmerited favour from God. Pure grace speaks of nothing but the finished work of Christ. I learnt that the work of God cannot be tainted by any trace of human efforts. Exodus 20:25 says 'And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.' In an environment of grace, there is really no place for the law or human efforts to co-exist.

Yet the challenge remains: Can we really let go when the Lord tells us? Well, I have learnt that it can be done but again it's not with our strength. It is with God's strength and His Spirit that we learn to let go. Once again, our reliance is on Him.