“Acquisition and its strategies obviously have a role in life. It is important to pursue and acquire good nutrition, reasonable health, a just society, basic self-respect, the material means by which to live, and a host of other things. However, they don’t have a real role in the deeper dynamics of life. For example, they play no role in helping us to die or to become aware of God. Dying is all about letting go and letting be, as is the awareness of God…Receiving and letting go are one act.” (Martin Laird)
“When we need God to act in a situation, we have to get out of the way first. Many of us pray to God for help, but we don’t want to feel powerless, so we stay overinvolved in a situation or over-function in an attempt to control it. In such cases, if God were to suddenly act and grant our request, would we not attribute the resolution of the situation to ourselves, our efforts, and our over-functioning? When we let go and step back, this clears room for God to act, so that when He does, it is clear that deliverance and resolution come from God and not from us. God wants what is best for us, and He would not want to act in a way that reinforces our own need for control and over-functioning.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“So many of us struggle with being in the here and now. We spend most of our waking hours reliving the past or planning for the future. But God is with us in the here and now offering us each moment in front of us to savor and use towards our salvation and also guiding us not to worry overly about tomorrow, but to tend to the needs of the day. The more we are able to have faith in Him to handle our future and the more we are able to forgive ourselves and others and let go of the past the more we will be able to live in our season – using each moment in prayer and in offering to our beloved Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (Sasha Rose Oxnard)
“Upon St. Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus, St. Paul had to let go of his former belief system, his purpose (persecuting the church), his temperament, and his ego. This was not a mere behavioral shift. He had to let go of his identity and purpose. St. Paul did not instantly go from being Saul the great persecutor to St. Paul the super apostle. He spent three years in Arabia and Damascus. He no doubt engaged in the process of coming to terms with and letting go of his former life and in discovering his new purpose.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“Letting go is hard because it feels powerless at first. It feels worse when someone tells us in the middle of a great struggle that we need to let go. We have been conditioned to seek control and power whether we realize it or not, so that is why letting go feels so counter-intuitive and passive. Yet time and time again it proves to be the right course of action. The first step perhaps for those of us who value action and see letting go as inaction is to change our thinking. We should understand that letting go is actually an action, often the most important action we will take in almost every aspect of our lives.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)