Let Go and Let God Is Correct
written by: Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Let go of all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Overcoming emotional hurt is a vital gift that God provides through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in our mind and soul, opening our consciousness to face our pain honestly. Fooling ourselves by ignoring our wounds exacerbates our suffering. Further, our inappropriate expectation hurts us. When we think we should heal quickly, and it takes longer, we beat ourselves and make matters worse. It requires determination, patience, and faithful trust to address our pain with lasting healing.
Thomas Oppong helps us comprehend Carl Jung’s argument on overcoming our pain in his article “Carl Jung: We Don’t Heal, We Let Go.” Oppong quotes Jung, saying, “We don’t really heal anything; we simply let it go.” Jung, once again, stands on Biblical foundations. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:31-32 proclaims, “Paul tells us in Ephesians that we must forgive one another and let go of rage, anger and slander, among other emotions and acts.” For Paul, healing takes place by letting go of the emotional frustration that keeps us from living meaningfully.
Healing can take weeks, months, or even years. In extreme cases, healing is never fully restored. If we wait for healing, we can suffer for too long. If we follow Carl Jung and the Apostle Paul’s recommendation, we can regain control of our lives. Our hurts will only continue to haunt us if we give them power. The way to disarm our pain is to follow Jung and the Apostle Paul and “let go.” No one is free of hurt. Learning to live with emotional pain, in its many forms, creates a meaningful life. God’s lifelong instruction for us is to embrace the fragility of this life. God makes it easier to let go because this world is not the end of our soul’s story.
When we embrace our eternal past, present, and future, we find it easier to let go of our hurts and trust that all will be made just and whole in God’s infinite time. I go back, in my mind’s eye, and try to remember emotional hurts from my early twenties, over forty years ago, and I cannot even remember what kept me up at night. Knowing that instead of forty years, you and I will be alive forty trillion years from now, and eternal recognition allows us to let go of the present discomfort and look forward to God’s everlasting mercy and joy. Amid your present pain, put on your eternal spectacle of faith, put your momentary affliction in its place, and put your belief in its place.
