Reflect - Remain - Relinquish
A few years ago I gave a message that I entitled “Look Back, Stay Present, Surrender Your Future.” It was such a good message that I’m sure every person in attendance is still thinking about it to this day. Okay, it is probably just me. But it is funny when God uses a message you have given in the past to remind you of something in the present. I know this isn’t something that only happens to teachers in the church either. Parents, school teachers, managers, and even baristas might experience this from time to time. It is the moment when you are reminded of something you have shared as wisdom in the past to someone else. My daughter does this to me all the time. I tell her, “Moriah, I love you so much.” And her response isn’t, “Oh, daddy, I love you so much too!” It is usually, “But you don’t love me more than Jesus, right? Because we need to love Him most.” My message to my daughter right back to me. But we need that from time to time, don’t we?
Yesterday I found myself worrying a lot. As I was processing this worry with my team leader in Catania, the phrase from my message a few years ago came back to my mind.
Look Back - Stay Present - Surrender Your Future.
Let’s break it down real quick.
Look Back- Two other words that come to mind are reflect and remember. Reflecting and remembering is a good thing. I mean, God commands the Israelites in the Old Testament all the time to “remember.” The whole point of their religious festivals were to remember. After they cross the Jordan River, and as they are heading into the Promised Land, God instructs them to place twelve stones on top of each other from the Jordan as a reminder of what happened that day. He instructs Joshua to tell them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4:5-7). We are forgetful people. God knows that. So, this practice of reflecting and remembering is a good spiritual practice because it makes us to slow down and remember what God has done in our lives up to the current moment.
Stay Present- Another word that comes to mind is remain. Personally, I cannot hear the word remain and not think of Jesus’ teaching in John 15. Depending on the translation you read from you might know this passage if I simply say the word “abide.” There is a lot that can come from this passage, but one thing I believe Jesus is communicating is for us to focus on the present. We do not focus on the fruit. The fruit will come only as we abide in Him. There are several spiritual practices we can incorporate in our lives to do this, but more broadly speaking, I think we would do ourselves a great benefit by remaining in the present a lot more than we do. I’ll touch on this in a moment.
Surrender Your Future- To keep on with my alliteration, we need another “r” word here. I had to do a synonym search to find a good word, but I really like it: relinquish. Some clarification here is needed. I do not mean that we have no interest in or ever focus on the future. There are many biblical examples of this. I believe God gives gifts to certain people who have vision for what could be. Personally, I find great value and purpose in thinking about the future. I believe God has given me a mind that is capable of seeing what isn’t. But this vision isn’t for me to stay in the future. It is actually to keep me in the present. What I “see” in my mind’s eye for the future needs to then be put into practice in the present. A leader with vision but no plan probably doesn’t have many followers, at least for long. The reason I like the word relinquish is because it brings a picture to my eye of a king relinquishing his throne. And this is what I mean when I say to surrender your future or to relinquish. Who is on the throne of your life? Any answer other than Jesus is not going to lead you anywhere good. So we relinquish our control of the future over to Jesus. We can only control what is in front of us now. We trust the rest to Him.
Reflect - Remain - Relinquish.
I like that. But how much time are we to spend in each? I wish there was a formula. But there isn’t. Here is what I do know. We need to be spending an overwhelming amount of our time in the present, remaining. When I am out of balance, like I was the other day, it is because I am spending too much of my time elsewhere. Here is a list of questions that might be helpful.
Are you worrying? You are probably focused too much on the future. You may need to spend more time remaining in the present or reflecting on what God has done in the past.
Do you lack direction? You might need to make sure you have vision for where you are headed. Just remember we do this in a posture of relinquishing it all to Jesus.
Do you lack trust? You would do well reflecting on all the ways God has provided for you up til now.
We need a healthy balance of each of these in our lives. They are all important. For now, I know I need to remain. What about you?
