Still reading through the book of Joshua, this morning I arrived at chapter 23 and the heading in my Bible says, "Joshua's final words to Israel." Someone's last words before they die are pretty significant because they usually highlight what is important and valuable to them - what really matters in the long run.
Joshua's instructions to the people were basically about holding on (vs 8): holding tightly to God and holding on to His Word. He reminds the people that every promise God made to them has come true, not a single one has failed, and so He urges them to have the same faithfulness towards the Lord as He has shown to them.
The Bible is full of declarations that God will never let us go; that He lovingly holds us in His eternal grip. As one verse says: "I have loved you with everlasting love." (Jeremiah 31:3)
Perhaps because I'm in the middle of a transition at the moment, this morning's meditation brought back a memory of a previous big transition, in 2008. I remember that God clearly spoke to me then about things I needed to hold on to and things I needed to let go of.
My reflections had been prompted in part by my experience the previous year, 2007, of packing up and preparing to leave South Africa. I seemed to have accumulated so much stuff over the years and, when I was packing my suitcase, I constantly had to make decisions about what to bring back with me to Europe and what to leave behind in South Africa. I discovered that you can't pack fourteen years of your life into a suitcase, and the airline's baggage restrictions forced me to become ruthless: to recognise that there was no room to take everything with me, and that I needed to give lots of things away or simply leave them behind!
Shortly after arriving back in Europe, I went to Spain for a few weeks - to house sit for friends, looking after their dog and cat while they were on an overseas trip. Their dog, Brandy, was a border collie and I used to take her for walks on the mountain behind their home. That was a bittersweet blessing, as I'd had to leave my own border collies behind in South Africa when I left.
I remember that one morning when I took Brandy for her walk, we were playing a game of fetch with an old stick that she picked up on the gravel road. The game was fast and furious, but the stick was so dried up and brittle that it sometimes cracked and broke into two pieces when it struck the ground. I soon noticed that whenever Brandy went to fetch the stick, she always tried to bring both pieces back to me. Even if the broken piece was barely two inches long, she would faithfully arrange both pieces in her mouth, as if she had a responsibility to bring the whole stick back, instead of simply choosing the part that was most usable.
It was such a funny, quirky thing to do, and yet, even as I watched and smiled, it struck me that sometimes we can approach life in this way: just as the dog didn't want to leave part of her stick lying in the roadway, sometimes we are also reluctant to leave behind or "lose" things that have been part of our lives. And so we try to take all the pieces with us - sometimes even the "broken" pieces that are no longer useful or helpful to us. And sometimes carrying these things is just as awkward for us as it was for Brandy to pick up two pieces of stick in her mouth!
That experience was what prompted me to reflect even more deeply on the things we really should be holding on to and the ones that God would actually want us to let go of. I searched the scriptures to find out what God says about it and I even preached on that topic a couple of times.
I was thinking about that again today and praying about what it means for me in this present time of transition. What are the things in my own life in this current situation that I need to hold on to at all costs? And what are the ones it would be better to let go of, in order to be able to move forward?
For example, I need to move house by the end of this month but it's become glaringly obvious over the past five or six weeks that staying in this town, Alhaurín de la Torre, is somewhat beyond my present means. I'd probably find cheaper accommodation options if I started looking in smaller towns and isolated villages further inland, further from Málaga. Yet I've been convinced for fourteen years that God has positioned me in this town and that it's where I'm meant to be.
The idea of "starting from scratch" in a new town, having to make new friends, getting a new doctor, dentist and vet; trying to find a new church (or facing the prospect of driving 40 km on a Sunday to the church that we planted here)... None of that sits well with me.
But I'm very aware of the days ticking by and the time running out. Should I continue to hold on to the hope of finding a new home here in Alhaurín or do I need to let go of that and start looking for accommodation in another part of the province?
I've been considering this topic from a biblical Christian perspective of course, but it seems to be a universal truth that pops up in other streams of thought and in other faiths too. For example, a 13th century Persian poet and Muslim philosopher is reputed to have said that all of life is a balance between holding on and letting go.
If you think of the question in terms of balance, the logical conclusion is that holding on to something we should have let go of (disappointments, resentment, unforgiveness, unfulfilled dreams...) and failing to let go of something that is weighing us down will throw our lives out of balance and make it easier for us to fall. The same is true of the times we give up and let go of something that we really should have held on to (a friendship, a vision, a goal or a skill to be learned...)Brandy's commitment to bringing back the whole stick was admirable... but it would have been much easier for her simply to make a choice and to leave one of the pieces behind. As I go through life, I pray that I will increasingly learn to draw on God's wisdom to do the same: to know which things are important enough to hold on to and take with me... and which things are the pieces I need to let go of and leave behind me on the roadway.
