The best gift I received during the holidays of Christmas 2024 came in an unexpected form.

Believe it or not, it never sat in a cart, neither real nor virtual. While the crumpled candy-cane wrapping paper was still on its way to the landfill, this unassuming gift arrived quietly at the doorstep of my heart. It wasn’t glittery or glamorous, but it changed me more than anything wrapped beneath the tree.

The gift I’m describing cost me dearly, yet not in the form of cash, credit card, or gift cards. My flesh would like to shout from the mountaintops that the cost was steep. My pride, my self-righteousness, and my closed grip that held offense put up picket signs around my heart.

I protested the thought of loosening the grip of my dear friend, hurt.

When we’d talk, hurt always told me that I was always in the right. I didn’t have to consider another person’s perspective because hurt always made me feel validated. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s easy to get stuck in my own personal echo chamber when I listen to hurt.

When things lie outside of my control, it’s easy for me to camp out in negativity believing that I can’t do anything to fix the situation. The way out sometimes seems to be in another person’s hands. When the outcome rests with someone else, it’s easy to feel powerless. All of my attempts at reconciliation had seemingly failed. My unanswered prayers became an opportunity to wait patiently, surrender, and trust.

This unexpected, strange gift felt air-dropped from heaven during a quiet car ride. It was on one of those days where you can take a breath between Christmas and New Year’s. My heart pivoted somewhere on a country road in the middle of nowhere. A massive spotlight suddenly flipped on, and God graciously showed me exactly where I had been living. .

God can lift us out of the places where we’re stuck and lead us onto a new path—one we walk together with Him.

A mudflat can be a bit like quicksand with unstable, suction-like mud. I realized that I’d been stuck in my own personal mudflat. What once felt like ankle-deep sludge was now creeping up to my knees. I knew that if I didn’t let God lift me out, I’d soon be waist-deep and even more sucked into the trap of living out of hurt.

A spotlight was shining directly on my mud-stained heart. Smudges on my clothes and face had been not as obvious as they were now that God’s light was illuminating my sin and brokenness. With crystal-clear clarity, I realized that my tendency to focus on disappointment and hurt were crowding out joy and peace in my day-to-day.

God showed me that I had been letting the opinions and actions of others derail me, placing my worth in things that were never meant to define me. My worth comes from Him alone. Yet in my hurt, I had surrendered ground in my heart to the enemy. That unhealed pain had been quietly draining me. Instead of walking in the victory God promised, I had been sinking into discouragement.

My response was to confess my sin and turn 180 degrees asking God to help me walk out repentance with Him. I realized that the way out wasn’t dependent on anyone else. It was a path that God and I would walk together. I asked Him what the next steps were that he wanted me to take. I immediately obeyed. He asked me to trust Him and led me to specific acts of kindness with no expectation of results.

Submission to God’s sovereignty allows us to release everyone and everything to him.

Around the same time, John Eldredge’s prayer of release came onto my radar. This short, but powerful prayer says, “God I give everyone and everything to you.” It literally takes 3 seconds to say. It’s short. It’s concise and I’m pretty sure that everyone and everything covers it all.

What I love about this prayer is that it is simple, but so profound. When my heart is postured to release control, fear, hurt, and people, I can actively let go. In the release, I’m reminded that God is intimately involved in my life through the work of his Holy Spirit.

As soon as my mind lingers on something outside of my control, I pray. Opening both hands, fingers spread in a jazz-hand sort of way, I give it all to Him. Often, the trigger for this prayer is other people’s current choices or opinions. Just as often, it comes from hurt or memories from the past, and sometimes it even stems from fears looming in the future

Saying it once can be enough to get my eyes off myself and onto God. But, harder things have required more time in prayer. If I am with other people, I pray in my mind, but my hands instinctively open to release.

The movement in my hands has always been paired with the prayer. Symbolically, it is as if my body is telling my heart what to do. People around me might wonder why I am repeatedly opening up my hands, but I don’t care how it looks. I am giving it to Him because He tells me in HIs Word to cast my cares on Him in 1 Peter 5:7 ESV. “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares for you.”

Vibrancy and vitality come through the process of letting go and giving the things we can’t control to God.

After a few months of this discipline of releasing, my heart felt free and vibrant. This became my standard operating procedure, and joy grew because I didn’t feel stuck anymore. The situation didn’t change, but I did.

I felt a vibrancy that had eluded me for years. My heart was no longer hindered by the weight of offense. I have made it a practice to cling to the truth that God is Sovereign. I can’t change anyone’s heart. That is entirely outside my control. I knew that God could do all things. And so, I decided to trust Him and obey His call to release my hurts to Him.

The practice of spiritual artwork is dear to my heart. Watercolor had been the latest thing I had been trying my hand at. A concept was bubbling up inside of me as I noticed a shift in my soul and I wanted to convey it on paper.

I wanted to show movement of the hands, alongside the act of release, giving way to vibrant colors. That is what my heart feels like after releasing things outside my control to the Lord. Every time I see this artwork, it reminds me of the vibrant life that that God offers when we choose to let go and trust Him.

As a follow up to the first piece, I wanted to paint my heart before the consistent practice of release. When you look at this secondary picture, you’ll notice that all the same colors are there. The colors are muted and dull. Clearly, this closed grip looks less appealing than release. Unfortunately, Satan tricks us into thinking that we’d be losing out to let go and release. The truth is that he is liar.

We are to throw off everything that hinders us from running well for Christ so that we can keep our eyes on him, run with perserverance, and live in freedom.

Hebrews 12:1-2 NIV tells us to “…throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…”

Holding onto hurt is a hindrance. Picture trying to run a race with a backpack full of boulders strapped to your back. The author of Hebrews tells us to throw off everything that hinders us, which includes the boulders of offense.

Hanging on to the negative is not only a heavy load we carry, but also a sin that easily entangles. In the Bible, these type of festering negative feelings are called bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness. We like to sanitize the names we give our pet sins, but let’s just call a spade a spade. Hanging onto hurt like a security blanket is sin.

God wants us to be free. This gift of release is costly to my flesh. However, it is a free gift that gives freedom to the soul. This present allows us to be present with the Lord. It allows us to emotionally be okay when things are not as we’d prefer them to be.

I can act out of my free and forgiven identity in Christ.

When we are released, we can be free to act with grace and kindness. Those things may restore relationships, but they may not. But, regardless I am no longer stuck. Instead, I’m acting out of my free and forgiven identity in Christ.

The more we release, the more we let Him lift us out of the pit. King David paints a picture in Psalm 40:1-3 NIV of feeling stuck. “I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him.”

The slimy mud and mire of sin can pull us in. Both you and I can get stuck. We need our Heavenly Father to lift us out. Cry out to Him—He hears you. He longs to set your feet on solid rock, giving you a firm place to stand. And once He has delivered you, joy will naturally spill out. You can’t help but sing of His goodness and tell of His faithfulness. That is the very best of gifts.

Next steps…Practical ways to get unstuck and have your feet set upon the Rock

If you are anything like me, you read this and are inspired to want to let go and release your cares to the Lord. You don’t want to remain the same, but the truth is… without making changes, nothing will change. Here are a few steps you can take to receive the gift of release within your life. You can allow God lift the muted and dull backdrop to make way for a whole new outlook.

SPIRITUAL

Read God’s word and pray through the passages asking God to give you a heart like His. Slow down to pray and meditate on it. That means chew on it and process it. Digesting one sentence that leads to life transformation is better than reading the whole Bible without a changed heart. The goal is for the Word of God to permeate our hard hearts.

Here are a few passages that have spoken to me on this topic. Psalm 103:12, Psalm 40, Ephesians 4:29-32, Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 6:27-36, Proverbs 17:9, Psalm 32, Romans 12, James 3:18, 1 Peter 3:8-18, 2 Corinthians 13:11, Hebrews 12:1-15, Philippians 2:1-18.

Take it slow and seek to apply. When you mess up, which we all do, confess it to Him and turn back to Him in repentance and keep your heart soft before Him.

EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL

When you feel a thought or an emotion rise up, such as fear or hurt, open your hands as you pray giving everyone and everything to God. Take each and every thought and emotion captive and make them obedient to God and His Word.

PHYSICAL

You can release pent up frustration in your body through taking a deep breath in. Exhale with a strong slow release. Moving your hands signals your emotions to let go. Go for a walk or a run with some worship music, or maybe silence.

RELATIONAL

James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed”.  Talk through the process with a trusted friend, counselor, or coach. If you need someone to coach you through what it means to live well related to release, I’d love to investigate what that means for you through some coaching sessions.

Journal prompts:

Who or what is God asking you to release?

What is holding you back?

Allow yourself to dream… What freedom might I experience if I were to approach God and let go every time my mind and heart wanted to camp out in fear or hurt?

May the Sovereign Lord fill you with all hope, peace, and love as you release everyone and everything to Him.

Works Cited: John Eldredge, Give Everything and Everyone to God, Proverbs 31 Ministries, August 29, 2022.

https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2022/08/29/give-everyone-and-everything-to-god