letting go

I am reading a book by Henri Nouwen called The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life.

One of his thoughts really met me.

"...We realize that the closer we come to God, the stronger will be God's demand to let go of the many "safe" structures we have built around ourselves. Prayer is such a radical act because it requires us to criticize our whole way of being in the world, to lay down our old selves and accept our new self, which is Christ . . .. In the act of prayer, we undermine the illusion of control by divesting ourselves of all false belongings and by directing ourselves totally to the God who is the only one to whom we belong. Prayer therefore is the act of dying to all that we consider to be our own and of being born to a new existence which is not of this world. Prayer is indeed a death to the world so that we can live for God."

My time in Cambodia has reminded me of these truths Henri describes. We really do build "safe" structures around us, in an attempt to keep some sort of control over our lives or because we think we know best what we need. In the past month or so I have spent time reflecting on what that actually looks like in my life. While here, the Lord has changed my heart in many ways, showing me more and more about what is important to Him, and therefore, to me. Letting go of some of those safe structures has been an incredibly freeing experience. Dying to the world and letting go of the "safe" structures is a difficult process that we need to do again and again...but in doing so, we experience Christ as we never could have otherwise.