A word cloud shows the words used most often in the pope's tweets are "God," "Jesus," "lives," love," and "let."
I almost skimmed past it. But something caught my eye. God, Jesus, lives, love...all that seemed like typical "Pope tweet" material. But "let"...where did that come from? At first I dismissed it as just a common word, but then I really stopped to think about it.
No wonder the Pope tweets the word "let" so often. In the advice he shares via Twitter, it would make sense that he would urge us to "let." After all, don't we have free will?
Our life choices are OURS. God has a plan for each and every one of us, but we must LET Him guide us our lives if we wish to live according to His plan.
So much of our life and our relationship with God is about "letting." Letting go of the past. Letting go of sin. Letting God take control. Even just merely letting Him into your life to begin with.
If you want a relationship with God, you've got to open yourself up to it. God forces nothing upon you.
He mercifully gives us all the choice: choose Him or turn away. Holiness or sinfulness. If we want to grow close to Him, we must let Him work in our lives.
It's easy to turn away. It's easy to say no to Him and live life according to our own standards. But that's not what's best for us. God knows it, and we should, too.
God calls us to carry our Cross for Him. God calls us to answer His call, to hear His voice, to live a holy life. If we do so, He promises that one day our hard work will pay off. We will enter into a complete union with Him, into perfect love and happiness. But if we even want to take the first step down this road to perfect love, we've got to be able to let God have our lives.
By "let God have our lives," I mean fully and completely, without any hesitation or regrets. We need to approach God and hand Him everything that makes us who we are. All of it must be set down at His feet. We must give Him every part of us, and then we must trust Him and LET Him work. Then, right before our eyes, we will see Him take each part and rebuild it into His very own beautiful masterpiece.
So often we try to control our lives. We interfere with God's work. We'll give Him some of ourselves, but we have reservations. After all, it is quite difficult to hand over our entire lives to God and trust He'll see us through it.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34).
Don't worry about tomorrow. Sounds impossible, right? How could we not worry about our future? About college and majors and careers and families and money?!
Easy. Trust God. Let Him work.
It is easy. I promise you, it is. The problem is that we complicate it. All the time. We take it upon ourselves to figure life out, to find our own happiness. But that's impossible. We can't do it alone. We can't map out our life according to our plan and our schedule and expect perfect results. We can't even make everything fit our standard of "perfect." Because we're not in control. God is. And right now, in my life and in your life, He's working. Or at least He is trying to. He is trying to show you the way, to reveal to you how He is calling.
If only we stopped trying to control our lives, then maybe we could see that there is really nothing to worry about as long as God's will is above all else. Then maybe we'll see that, all along, God was trying to lead us down His path, the path to true happiness and true love.
Right now, you may be tugging at a door, waiting for it to finally open so you can start down your planned-out and straight path to whatever your goal in life is. But stop tugging. God's knocking at another--perhaps completely unexpected--door somewhere else, but you're too preoccupied with that sealed door to hear Him.
I invite each of you to offer up your life to God. If you start to worry about the future, it won't be easy. But if you realize that God is holding your life, now and forever, in His hands, you will see there is no need to worry. God is trying to build a wonderful life for you, so why not let Him work?
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