Learning to let go is a gift you can give yourself, a very valuable gift.

I’m often amazed at how people get so bent-out-of-shape over the small stuff. You know—like yelling at an airline employee because a flight is late, screaming at the driver in front who stopped on a green light, fussing at your kids or mate because they left socks on the floor, losing sleep because your next-door neighbor’s dog irritates you. Small stuff. And then I have to recognize that I let small stuff upset my days far too often as well.

Years ago I began to see that this was a problem for me. I was really bad at letting the small stuff ruin my days. So, I started praying about it, for one thing; and then I learned a simple technique which has served me well. When I’m starting to get upset, I ask myself, “What difference will this make in twenty-four hours?” And I’ve set a rule for myself that if it won’t matter this time tomorrow, I simply am not allowed to spend any energy on it. I can’t get angry; I can’t get frustrated; I can’t get my feelings hurt; I can’t complain about it—because it won’t make one bit of difference this time tomorrow.

I highly recommend that you learn to ask yourself this simple question—what difference will this make in twenty-four hours—because I can testify that it is life-changing. You will learn to let go of the small stuff, and you’ll discover that probably about 90 percent of what is bugging you today is small stuff that won’t matter in twenty-four hours. Just think of how much stress this will take out of your life.

Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).

Is there someone in your life right now that has done you wrong? Someone who deserves to be punished and suffer for the wrong they’ve done you? Are you willing to let go of your right for revenge?

This is one area where lots of us find it very difficult to let go. If you’ve been truly hurt by someone—especially someone who has never apologized or tried to make it right or even acknowledged that they hurt you—no doubt your natural reaction is to get back at them. How can they get off scot free while you are left hurting, even devastated? It just eats at your sense of fair play—it’s just not fair. So, how in the world can you let go of this deep desire to see them punished for what they’ve done to you?

I’ve met people who have become so fixated on the hurt done to them, so determined that the other person suffer, that they have become obsessed with revenge. It’s understandable how a person could get to this place. Your mind dwells on the injustice, and the more you think about it, the more you cannot let go of the anger. Then that anger turns into bitterness and you inflict even more pain and hurt on yourself.

The Bible says that vengeance belongs to the Lord and he will repay. If you’re hanging on to a desire for revenge, this is one truth you need to learn and accept. God is the avenger; he knows who deserves punishment; he knows about wrongs that have never been set right. And unless a person repents and truly forsakes their ways, God is going to have the last word. Those wrongs will not always go unavenged.

So, if you can let go of your desire to get your pound of flesh; if you can take them off your hook and put them on God’s hook, you will free yourself from the terrible pain of that hurt. The more you refuse to let go, the more you increase the pain. And the more you suffer for it.

One of the best gifts you can ever give yourself is to let go of your right for revenge. Trust the God who sees and knows all, and who will someday settle every score—his way.

Have you ever heard of the gift of letting go? Well, this gift of letting go isn’t found in the Bible per se, but certainly the Bible is full of admonitions to let go. I want to talk about letting go of the controls of your life—and this applies to all of us control-freaks!

Proverbs 3:5-6 makes it very clear that we are to turn over the controls to the Lord: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

And again in Isaiah 48:17: “This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.’”

It’s easy to quote these verses, but when it comes to giving up your plans and asking God to direct you in the way you should go, well, that’s not quite so easy, is it? Maybe you do what I’ve often done—you come up with your plans and then you ask God to bless them. Lord, here is what I want to do; it’s a really good plan; I’ve thought it through very carefully and I’m sure you agree that this is the way I should go. So, please bless my plans. Are you guilty of that kind of control tendency, as I often am?

When will we learn that God’s ways are best? As we just read from Isaiah, God teaches us what is best for us. He’s not trying to make your way hard; he’s not trying to steal your joy. He simply knows what is best for you. He is far better at controlling your life than you are! So, please give him the blank piece of paper and ask him to write the plan.

And here’s the thing: this gift of letting go of the controls of your life and giving God permission to run your show is not a once and for all thing. It’s pretty much a daily attitude, an on-going commitment, an intentional decision you will have to make on a regular basis. Your days need to begin with relinquishing the controls of your life to God for that day, admitting your inadequacy to control your own lives, and once again acknowledging that you belong to God and he is in control.

I urge you to let go of the controls of your life—give them over to God. And then do it again tomorrow and tomorrow—and all the tomorrows of your life. You’ll never regret it.

A friend once said to me that she was learning about the gift of letting go, and I immediately related to what she was saying. There are several gifts of the Spirit listed in Scripture, but you won’t find the “gift of letting go” there. So, it’s not a gift that some people have and others don’t. Rather it is a gift we give ourselves, and we are the only ones who can do that—and everyone desperately needs this gift.

I began to make a list of what we often need to let go of, and I was thinking that maybe this list would be helpful to you as well.

Letting Go of Our Dreams

We all need goals and visions and missions that we aspire to and work toward. So, I’m not talking about letting go of God-given dreams and ambitions. I’m talking about letting go of your daydreams, for one thing. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself living in a world of daydreams. I think this is often a result of missing pieces in our lives, and we start to build a fictional world in our minds around that missing piece.

For example, if you want to be married and that piece is missing in your life right now, you can start daydreaming about how wonderful married life would be. Even if there is no potential mate in sight, you can imagine the perfect mate who would fulfill all your dreams and make that make-believe world a reality. That may seem harmless—and small amounts of very occasional daydreaming are—but when it becomes mind-consuming, you are setting yourself up for discouragement, depression, disappointment and disillusionment. And another thing—living in that make-believe world consumes time and energy and keeps you from productive activities.

Then sometimes you need to let go of a life-long dream and trust God for your future. If you’re dealing with a broken dream—one that seemed like a dream-come-true but instead has turned into a nightmare—you may be at that point where you need to let it go. Believe me, I know that seems like mission impossible, but it’s not as hard as you think it will be, and if it’s time to let go, God will reward you with a peace that will amaze you. I’ve been there, and I remember when I finally let go of my broken dream, peace swept over me like I never imagined and I realized how much of my pain was self-inflicted.

(Presented By Lisa Bishop)

When it comes to your thoughts, which ones do you find yourself dwelling on? What fears, failings, unproductive patterns of thinking get recycled in your mind? What words do you find yourself regularly rehearsing that lead to worry, anxiety, perhaps even anger or self-defeat?

It has been said that our thoughts determine our life. Where our thoughts go, our lives will follow. What we believe determines how we live.

A really important part of our faith as followers of Jesus is our thought life and being mindful of what we meditate on.

If you were to take an inventory of your thoughts over the last 24 hours, what were some that were on repeat? Were they life giving and encouraging thoughts or did they lead you to be anxious, worried, or drive you into a pit of despair? Are your predominant thoughts lovely or life sucking? Are they worthy of praise or do they cause a panic?

“I will never amount to anything.”

“I am a failure.”

“I don’t have what it takes.”

“God doesn’t really care about me.”

“I am not lovable.”

“I will always be alone.”

“I will never measure up.”

“I will never get out of debt.”

“I will always be stuck in this addiction.”

“My life will never change.”

Hopefully I didn’t just depress you with that list but if we are honest, how often do our thoughts sound strikingly similar?

The power of our thoughts shapes us. What we choose to focus, dwell and ruminate on influences our lives and affects our peace. Notice I said the word choose. Oftentimes we take the position of being a casual bystander of our thoughts, we leave our thoughts unchecked and let them consume us and ultimately rule us. We can get captured by our thoughts rather than holding our thoughts captive to Christ.

Second Corinthians 10:5 gives us instruction when it comes to our thinking: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

What Paul is referencing are ungodly philosophies, untrue thoughts about God and false religions. But Paul’s principle has a much broader application. We have the ability to boss our thoughts around. We are not helpless victims or recipients of our thoughts. We can choose to interrupt our thoughts and bring every one of them into captivity to the obedience of Christ—thoughts of lust, thoughts of anger, thoughts of fear, thoughts of greed, bitter thoughts, worrisome thoughts, angry thoughts, thoughts of envy and comparison.

Holding our thoughts captive is a very active and intentional action and process. And when Paul is telling us to hold our thoughts captive that word in the Greek means to lead away, to bring under control. As followers of Jesus we are instructed to bring our thoughts in alignment with truth, with God’s thoughts. Notice Paul says every thought. That encompasses thoughts about God, ourselves, our circumstances, and others, our future and our past.

So what do we do when we recognize that our mind has wandered and started to entertain thinking that is not in line with what God thinks? We reign our thoughts in! It reminds me of a time my girlfriends and I spent a week at a ranch in Colorado. One day when we were trail riding we came across a wide opening in the field where the ranchers were wrangling cattle. It reminded me of those old western movies where they would swing the lassos above their heads and cast it out to capture a runaway cow. That is what we want to do with our thoughts. Picture your thoughts like a cow. When you sense one running rampant, lasso it in! Bring it into the fold of God’s thinking.

And in order to think like God you must be in the Word of God. I love the reminder in Psalm 1,

There are some unusual examples of women in Scripture who broke the molds of their day, were mightily blessed, and used by God, and fulfilled God's purpose in their lives by breaking out of traditional roles.

This is a topic we struggle with in many Christian circles today, and you'll find a different viewpoint for almost every person you talk with. As a woman who has personally struggled with the boxes others have built for me, I've really tried to get a biblical perspective. Admittedly, that's not easy to do, because all of us face these questions with our personal biases and mindsets.

But I've concluded that God, in his infinite creativity, has cast some women into positions and roles that are different, just as he has done with some men. For years as a young woman I felt that God must have made a mistake to give me the kind of personality and qualities that I possess. From my experience in Christian circles, it seemed that I would have been better off with a different personality, one less assertive, without leadership tendencies; that quiet and meek spirit which Peter talks about and I interpreted as meaning you kept your mouth shut at all times.

Without expressing it, I simply felt like a square peg in a round hole very often. I felt I had to suppress the natural tendencies I had and constantly try to be like other women who seemed to fit better into the expectations of what a Christian woman should be. That was a mistaken understanding on my part.

I now realize that God knew exactly what he was doing when he made me the way I am, and if it doesn't fit some man-made boxes, that simply is not my concern. My mind is to be set on following Jesus, without any thought about whether that takes me in traditional or non-traditional paths. He has called me to be a disciple, I am responsible for fulfilling the great commission in my own life, and I must faithfully focus on what God wants me to do. The Bible gives me guidelines, but I am not bound to the traditions and biases of others.

Neither am I called to be a troublemaker; to prove that women are qualified; to change the mind of those who disagree. That is God's business, not mine.

If you find yourself struggling with your non-traditional role, I want to encourage you to make sure your motivation and your commitment are single-focused on Jesus, and then follow him, wherever that takes you. God will continue to call some women to be mold-breakers, as he has throughout the history of the Church.

As long as we keep our eyes fixed on following Jesus, wherever it leads, we're free from the boxes and expectations of others; free to be a slave of Jesus Christ.

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There is a woman in the Old Testament whose leadership and accomplishments would be outstanding today. In her day they had to be incredible.

Deborah was one of the judges of Israel, the top authority in the country at that time. She had men working for her; she even led the army into a battle and won it. That certainly was not a customary role for women in her time.

She must have felt like a fifth wheel at times. She was different from all the other women in her day! It must have been a lonely spot. Undoubtedly there were times when she grew weary of the responsibilities and pressures on her. But she was a woman of great faith in God, and her dedication to her calling was unwavering, whatever personal desires she may have had to forego.

We know that she was married; we don't know if she had any children. But this was a woman in a traditional role yet called by God to a job that was very untraditional. She had a position of higher authority than her husband—than any other man in the country.

Why do you think Deborah accepted the job of judge? I don't think she was trying to prove anything. There was no election campaign, where she stumped the trail proclaiming that women had a right to be a judge. Her career ambition was not to be the first woman judge in Israel. That was never an issue with Deborah. Deborah was a judge because God called her to be one.

Why do you think God asked Deborah to be a judge for those many years? Because he had gifted her for the job and that was his plan for her. Why would he ask her to do something so different from a traditional woman's role? Because God is sovereign, and he uses many different kinds of people in different situations as he sees fit.

God still calls some women to break old molds and do things not often done by women. He has a right to do so now, just as he did with Deborah. But the women God calls are not marching for women's rights. They are marching in the Lord's army, followers of Jesus Christ, committed to his service, regardless of the role they are asked to fill.

If God has called you to be a mold-breaker, count it a privilege. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about departing from biblical principles or standards, but rather about man-made traditions and roles. Sometimes God uses mold-breakers in very effective ways.

We see in Luke 8 that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and many other women broke the molds of their day in order to follow Jesus Christ, support him and testify to his power in their lives.

Yes, these women pushed the limits, they exceeded the boundaries, they ignored tradition. Undoubtedly they must have gotten lots of funny looks and perhaps some strong lectures from other people who thought they had overstepped their boundaries as they traveled all over following Jesus and supporting his ministry. But I don't think they cared what people thought.

You see, they were breaking the mold but not for the sake of saying they had broken the mold. They weren't trying to blaze new paths for women, nor were they rebelling against unfair treatment.

They were women who were driven but not by a desire to show people what women could do. They were driven by a fierce love and commitment to the Man who had changed their lives—the Messiah who had come to deliver them from their bondage. And they just couldn't let traditional molds keep them from sharing that truth.

I believe this example left to us by these most unusual women gives us a guideline to follow as women in today's world. Can we—should we—be mold-breakers? The guiding principle is that when a tradition or a mold inhibits our ability to share Jesus Christ, to follow him in new and effective ways, then breaking the mold is the right thing to do.

Now, understand that I'm not talking about breaking scriptural principles, but I am talking about the boxes that people sometimes would put us into because we're women, the limitations we place on ourselves because of traditional female roles.

We sometimes use our female roles as an excuse for not going into our worlds with the Gospel. They become the skirts we hide behind, our rationalizations for not sticking our necks out to serve the Lord in new and meaningful ways.

How about you? Ready to break some molds. Look at these women in Luke 8 and ask God to give you the wisdom and courage to know when to break away from what is "acceptable behavior" into new territory to follow him more perfectly.

We see in Luke 8 that there was a group of women who followed and supported Jesus and his disciples as they travelled. Unusual women—breaking out of traditional roles to follow Jesus. What can we learn from their example?

I have to believe that the disciples had some difficulty getting used to having women following them. But notice that Jesus allowed them to come along. We see no indication that he urged them to return or refused to accept their support.

No, in fact he had cured many of these women of evil spirits and diseases. And I believe he was delighted to have them come along and testify to what he had done for them. I can just see Mary Magdalene, as they enter a town, standing in the midst of a group of strangers who are listening with intensity as she tells them how Jesus delivered her from seven evil spirits. What a testimony she must have had, and I can imagine that many others were delivered by Jesus because of her witness.

We see another woman, Joanna, who had been healed by Jesus. She was the wife of a prominent man in Herod's government. It had to be most unusual for a woman in her position to decide to follow this itinerant preacher around, to support him and his team. I wonder if that was even a consideration with Joanna. Don't you imagine she was so grateful to Jesus for what he had done in her life, that she simply was compelled to follow him? She was married, and she must have had her husband's consent to leave her home in order to follow Jesus. But she didn't let anything stop her, not even traditions of her day.

Evidently these were women of means, because they supported Jesus and the disciples out of their own pockets. Imagine that; these women picked up the tab. That had to be more unusual then than it is even now.

It might have been a little hard at first for the disciples to take money from the women. But they learned the wonderful lesson that we are one in Christ and we share the ministry of the gospel equally.

I'm reminded of Paul's words which tell us that in Christ "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). These women and men did not allow tradition to keep them from working together as one body, with one mission, to tell the world about Jesus Christ. We need to rethink our roles and traditions and see if they are inhibiting us and keeping us from being everything God wants us to be.

With female roles changing rapidly in our society, we've seen a lot of molds broken by women. Have you been puzzled about whether Christian women should or should not be mold-breakers? I'm going to talk about some women in Scripture who broke the molds of their day.

We women are doing things never dreamed of by our grandmothers, and our lifestyles are changing in many respects. We can applaud some of these opportunities we have been given—and indeed have insisted on having—in the last five or six decades. But we can also see how we've thrown the baby out with the water all too often as we've pushed forward to plow new ground.

But mold-breaking, in and of itself, is not wrong. In fact, if we as Christians are not willing to break out of the "this is the way we've always done it" syndrome, we'll lose our effectiveness as witnesses to a dying world. We need some mold-breaking Christians—yes, women—who are willing to be different in order to be what God wants them to be.

I want to briefly look at some women in the Bible who broke the molds in their days. In Luke 8 we see a group of them, who traveled with Jesus and the disciples from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news. There was Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support Jesus and the disciples out of their own means.

Here are some most unusual women. When travel was very difficult and dangerous and when women were expected to stay home, these women were traveling, following behind and supporting a group of men. Can you picture this group walking down the dirt road, Jesus and 12 men, followed by a large number of women? Not exactly traditional roles for women of their day.

Why did they do this? Were they trying to prove something, trying to enlarge their boundaries? What caused them to take these kinds of risks and play a different role than was expected of women in their day? I want to look at these women and see if we, as Christian women today, can learn something from them.