Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Hebrews 13:8

Turning loose is never easy!  We love the familiar, the warm and comfortable, and the known.  The leap in the dark unknown, the uncertainty of what’s out there which you can’t see and can’t comprehend, makes the future dark, foreboding, and fearful.  The budding high-wire artist has to overcome his fear of failure, of falling, of danger; otherwise, he never makes it to the big top.  Picture the trapeze artist, poised and ready to take the big leap. He swings out into space faster and faster, but then at some point, he’s got to turn loose and fly through the air, reaching, stretching, towards the bar that swings towards him.

Turning loose is never easy!  We sometimes feel rejection when people who are close to us, ones we love, do turn loose and move on.  Picture the mother taking the hand of her little child to school for the first day.  If the youngster sees other children and gladly runs to the playground laughing and smiling, the mother turns away depressed and dejected.  She loves the feel of that warm little hand reaching towards her strong one.

Frankly, the day my eyes misted was when we saw our first-born daughter off to college.  Yes, we were delighted she had been accepted in the school of her choice, was going on a scholarship and had graduated valedictorian of her high school class, but when she walked down the ramp to the plane she was about to board, it seemed that we had crossed a bridge that I didn’t like.

Turning loose is never easy!  For many, however, the difficult time to turn loose is when your daughter walks down the aisle by your side for the last time, with eyes glistening, focused on a young man who has stolen her heart.  You say you have gained a son, but you honestly feel like you have lost your daughter.  The reality is that many parents never do turn loose, thereby handicapping their newly married son or daughter.  Remember, God’s plan is to leave father and mother and to be joined to a husband or wife in such a way that the two become one.  Apart from the leaving, there can be no cleaving.  A threesome–a bride, a groom and the mother-in-law–never makes a successful marriage.

Turning loose is never easy!  The most difficult challenge I’ve witnessed when it comes to the business of turning loose was when a husband of fifty years with misted eyes looked longingly at the photo of his wife and had to say good-bye until he joined her on heaven’s shore.

When a ship sails towards the horizon and you are standing on shore watching her progress, slowly the mast becomes shorter and shorter and finally disappears on the horizon.  “There she goes,” you nostalgically say.  But the person looking at the approaching ship far beyond the horizon, says, “Here she comes!”  That’s why when it comes to losing someone you love, and you know that Jesus Christ has been the anchor of that person’s life, you never have to say, “We lost her.”  Rather you can be assured that your loss has become heaven’s gain.

Turning loose is never easy!  When Paul wrote to the Philippians he said that he sought “to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold” of him.  In other words, he believed God had a purpose for his life, a will in all the difficulties and challenges he faced.  Then he said, “Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13,14).

Turning loose is never easy, but to go on, it’s got to be done.

Resource reading:  Philippians 3:7-11