Confusing though this title be
Follow me and you will see
As we anticipate the coming dawn
How we can let go and still hold on.
For the night is swiftly passing by
With its terror and our fear
And doubt assaults our little faith
As the trials continually appear.
The grueling race is ours to win
But we grab ahold of the besetting sin
And though we long to let it go
We still hold on; the evidence shows.
Life storms are constantly upon us
And its tempest rages deep within,
We scarcely hear the Shepherd’s voice
With the distraction of the din.
Let go and hold on is the plea
That comes amidst contrary gusts
But there are things we treasure here
And so we guard them with much fuss.
Do you see where all this leads?
This theme is really not a paradox
Instead it is simply God’s admonition
That faith delivers us from the box.
“Forgetting those things which are behind,”
The Apostle to the Philippians reminds us
“I press toward the mark for the prize
Of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The concept is letting go of our past
And counting those things gained as loss
And holding on to the eternal Christ
Who for us endured the cross.
It is letting go of the allurements
The glitter and glamour of Satan’s deceit
And holding on to Christ our Saviour
Casting all our treasures at his feet.
It is trusting in him for our salvation
Whose shed blood cleanses from sin
It is holding on to the fact of his grace
And letting go all that detracts from him.
We must die in order to live
Is a paradox of seeming impossibility
But letting go in order to hold on
Is not such; I hope you can see.
Spiritual paradoxes are only possible
Because God is the God of impossibilities
But letting go so that we can hold on
Is the daily walk of the Christian journey.
It is a “casting off the works of darkness”
And a “putting on of the armour of light”,
It is putting off the conversation of the old man
And from the devil’s treats taking flight.
It is submitting ourselves to Almighty God
And resisting the devil so that he flees,
It is draw nigh to God who will draw nigh to us
In James 4 is this straightforward decree.
In the New Testament in Acts chapter 5
There is a false attempt to let go and hold on,
Ananias and Sapphira had tried it their way
But in the end everything they had was gone.
Even their very life they also lost
When their concocted story Peter refused,
They sold their possessions but kept a part
This was the path they decided to choose.
They tried to hold on without letting go
And the baggage weighed them down,
In trying to get man’s acclaim and God’s too
They lost the victor’s crown.
Holding on and letting go
Is a fact of the Christian’s life,
If we refuse to let go when God says to
The likelihood is disaster and strife.
To hold on with out letting go
Is impossible in the Christian’s walk,
It is pretending to be a follower of Christ
Yet there is no action but just talk.
To hold on without letting go
Is to straddle the fence as the saying goes,
To be candid it’s neither here nor there but
A pseudo friendship with very real foes.
A putting off and putting on, that’s the key,
A progressive walk, not a hyped up spree,
A commitment to the charge to walk holy,
Let go and hold on is the Spirit’s plea.
Stewart Russell © 2017
