A. Development of Trust, P 5
5 The third stage through which the teacher of God must go can be called “a period of relinquishment.” If this is interpreted as giving up the desirable, it will engender enormous conflict. Few teachers of God escape this distress entirely. There is, however, no point in sorting out the valuable from the valueless unless the next obvious step is taken. Therefore, the period of overlap is apt to be one in which the teacher of God feels called upon to sacrifice his own best interests on behalf of truth. He has not realized as yet how wholly impossible such a demand would be. He can learn this only as he actually does give up the valueless. Through this, he learns that where he anticipated grief, he finds a happy light-heartedness instead; where he thought something was asked of him, he finds a gift bestowed on him.
Journal
Having sorted out the valuable from the valueless, it is then, time to relinquish that which is recognized as without value. At first, this can feel difficult and even painful because it might feel like we are called to sacrifice what we want and what we believe we need on behalf of truth. However, my experience has been that once done, I see that I have lost nothing and gained my freedom.
When I was still working, I began to realize that I had to give up competitiveness. As a salesperson, I thought that this meant the possibility of losing customers and so eventually losing my job. I had to decide what was more important to me, keeping my job or awakening. I had already determined that competitiveness was valueless, at least in concept, but concepts are worthless if you don’t live them.
So I gave up the idea that I was in competition for my customers or to seem better than my co-workers. I was surprised to discover that doing my job as an act of love was far better and cost me nothing. The joy and satisfaction I received as I extended love in the workplace would have been worth losing my job, but that didn’t happen. The more love I gave, the more I received and often that showed up in increased sales and more loyal customers.
One of the hardest areas that I have worked with is the special relationship. The idea of giving up my special relationships was so frightful that it took me a long time to make that leap of faith. I became fully convinced that special relationships were valueless and I accepted the idea that they could be transformed if I wanted that but letting go of them took more strength than I had alone. Fortunately, I am not alone.
This showed up in my relationships with my children for the most part. No matter how unhealthy the relationship, I clung to it. In my mind, it was my salvation and I didn’t know any other way to be with them. Slowly, though, I shored up my trust and I asked the Holy Spirit to transform these relationships. It has taken a number of years, but they have all shifted.
I used to say yes when I really meant no because I was afraid of rocking the boat. I didn’t believe in myself and so I could not accept that they believed in me. I thought for sure that I had to earn their love, and saying yes was how I did that. I used to think I had to fix everything for them, not realizing that it was not my job to do so and that they didn’t need me to do that. I used to think that I had to keep peace between them at all costs, and that was not for me to do either.
Once again, I saw that relinquishment cost me nothing. I discovered that I didn’t need them to be special to me and me to be special to them. We are even closer than we ever were without making the relationship special. I still have a few things to relinquish in that area, but it is happening more gently and easily now.
I relinquished the idea that I could make decisions on my own or that I even wanted to. By the time I started working on that, my faith in the process was strong and it only took practice. There was little fear involved and little resistance. Now I am looking at relinquishing it all in complete surrender of self. I anticipate a wonderful gift in its place.
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