“Let go, and let God.”  (Twelve-step slogan, based on one possible translation of Psalm 46:10.)

“In his book The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe describes how, in the 1950s, a few highly trained pilots were attempting to fly at altitudes higher than had ever been achieved. The first pilots to face this challenge responded by frantically trying to stabilize their planes when they went out of control. They would apply correction after correction, yet, because they were way out of the earth’s atmosphere, the rules of thermodynamics no longer applied, so the planes just went crazy. The more furiously they manipulated the controls, the wilder the rides became. Screaming helplessly to ground control, “What do I do next?!” the pilots would plunge to their deaths.

This tragic drama occurred several times until one of the pilots, Chuck Yeager, inadvertently struck upon a solution. When his plane began to tumble, Yeager was thrown violently around in the cockpit and knocked out. Unconsciously, he plummeted toward Earth. Seven miles later, the plane re-entered the planet’s denser atmosphere, where standard navigation strategies could be implemented. He steadied the craft and landed. In doing so, he had discovered the only life-saving response that was possible in this desperate situation: don’t do anything. Take your hands off the controls.” (As told by Tara Brach, https://www.tarabrach.com/taking-your-hands-off-the-controls-4/, accessed 08-07-2018.  The whole blog post is well worth your reading.)

My wife and I had a friend over for dinner last evening, and it was great fun.  She spoke of breaking a fairly long bad habit.  She had tried everything, and nothing worked.  Finally, God “spoke” to her—not in an audible voice, but very clearly.  She knew she had to quit.  She also knew she couldn’t.  So, she did a very simple, yet profound, thing.  She said to God, “You’ll have to do this!  I can’t.”

And she did it!  Or, rather, God did it!

Sometimes, there is a long process in breaking unhealthy habits.  Sometimes, there are relapses.  Sometimes, it is two steps forward, and one step back.  There are even times when it is one step forward, and two steps back.

But then, there are those times when you come to end of yourself.  Often, this is the beginning of God’s fairly direct and dramatic entrance into your situation.

People who don’t really understand the twelve-step slogan “Let go, and let God” (which includes the writer of this post sometimes) find fault with the slogan.  “Aren’t we supposed to do something?” we ask.

And the answer is, “Yes!”  However, what we too often overlook is the fact that the first “something” we need to do is to let go.  And letting go is one of the most difficult and often one of the most productive things anyone can do.

In a sense, my friend was practicing the first three steps:

Step 1: We admitted that we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Came to believe that power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood               God.

These first three steps are often summarized as I can’t, God can, and I think I’ll let him.

In many situations, we are simply not in control.  It might be wise to ask a higher power for help.  Even if you don’t believe in God, you might try it.  I knew a man in our twelve-step fellowship who was an atheist, but he realized that when he prayed, good things tended to happen.  One of his sponsees (also an atheist) challenged him about that.  “It’s probably just coincidence,” said the younger man.  The older man chuckled and said, “Probably.  But I’ve noticed that when I pray, coincidences seem to happen a lot more often.”