Long before Queen Elsa belted the song in Disney’s Frozen, the phrase Let It Go was used to encourage people to stop worrying about things that were outside of their control. Perhaps it also implies that a person should consider Movin’ On from something that happened in their past. What’s funny is that I can’t seem to hear the expression and not return to the time I was relaxing on my back porch and heard a little girl’s voice singing the song confidently through the hedge separating our yards. It was so precious, and she had no idea anyone was behind all that greenery smiling away as she sang. But if we can put aside the amazing vocals of Idina Menzel, or even an amateur little girl, and consider the meaning behind the phrase, we will uncover the meaning that I believe T.D. Jakes was considering when he wrote the book Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven. Or at least, it’s what he wrote for me.

It’s my perspective that Jakes is encouraging readers to embrace the message of Scripture found in 2 Timothy 4:7, when Paul states, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” For Jakes also shares, “Reading this book may be the most important step you can take right now toward personal healing and professional advancement. It’s not how you start but how you finish the race that counts. Before it’s too late, Let It Go! It’s time to get on with the real life you were meant to lead. It’s time to [flourish].” So much easier to type than it is to live. But there are Tough Seasons we must sometimes navigate in this world that will require us to arrive at a point where we can Let It Go. As Jakes advises, “…each of us learns, adapts, and adjusts to facing life in the wake of our personal disappointments, private losses [Silent Grief], and public fiascoes…We want relationship and long to love and be loved, and yet we all experience the painful disappointment of rejection, abandonment, or betrayal.”

I don’t know about you, but when I am hurt by someone, I want to do everything I can to protect myself from ever feeling that way again. And instead of rising above the situation, it’s all too easy “to become cynical and skeptical…Bitterness leaches into the groundwater of our soul, slowly permeating our entire being.” Jakes continues to advise that if we don’t learn how to move forward through it, if we don’t navigate a way to “filter out the sediments and foreign matters that block and poison us,” to clean out our Junk Drawer, we will become Bitter and not Better.

Because I tend to protect my heart, I become resistant to investing myself that deeply in others again, even if they aren’t the ones who created the initial pain. Jakes offers, “As we encounter people who let us down, people who say one thing and do another, people who promise more than they deliver, we learn to make very limited deposits and to limit true investments altogether. However, in order to succeed, life demands full investments.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want circumstances and people outside of my control to allow me to live half invested. But that’s what’s occurring. The other people aren’t even aware of the pain and hurt they have caused, or if they are aware, they just don’t care. In these moments I have no choice but to lean into my faith, to find a way to Let It Go.

“To dare to take the risk of living, of loving, of believing, with childlike simplicity of faith, to bring your full self into every present moment, to go from making halfhearted deposits into making the investment of a life worth living. As we Let Go of the debris, the emotional detritus that has clogged our valves and prevented our functioning at full capacity, we will rediscover ourselves, our best selves, and at that point, all those around us will reap the reward of the kind of investments that separate challengers from champions.”

My current challenge is to Let It Go in order to arrive at a better place where God can use me. I won’t even pretend that it Looks Easy because nothing about this process is easy, but it is simple, if I will lean into my faith, to the One who will Never Let Go, and rest in His assurances, I’ll be okay, eventually! Have you experienced a time when you were required to Let It Go? What helped you journey through the tough days? Please consider sharing to benefit all of us in the comments below.

References:

Gustafson, T. (2024, March 15). Eternal legacy. Our Daily Bread. Retrieved from https://odb.org/2024/03/15/hated-in-kansas

Jakes, T.D. (2012). Let it go: Forgive so you can be forgiven. Atria Books.

Smith, R. (2024, March 10). Ahithophel…A case study on bitterness. [Video]. Central Baptist Church, Crossville, TN. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUSNX9ai1TQ

Additional Resources:

Morgan, C. & Freeman, R. (2009). He is with you. [Recorded by Mandisa]. On Freedom. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3CVlv2dz3w