by Bill Woffington

Created on: July 20, 2008

Let Go and Let God

I haven't been on anyone's payroll for almost 3 years now and at times, part of me still responds to the Worlds' mantra and thinks I have to run around and do things and impress people and become somebody.

When I was growing up, teachers kept telling me I wasn't living up to my potential but no one ever told me what my potential was. The problem was that I believed them. I believed them clear down to my still forming, core value center. Between the teachers and the prevalent attitude that all kids have to grow up and be someone and growing up in a dysfunctional family, my emotional wiring got twisted pretty tight.

Not knowing what I was in potential and only knowing I wasn't doing it spurred me to a lifetime of frenetic racing. I had to get somewhere but I never figured out where that somewhere was. I only knew I wasn't there and that I was somehow flawed and failing.

Now I'm past the age of retirement and once in a great while I still catch myself wondering what I should have been when I grew up. The majority of the time, when I'm spiritually centered, when my mind hasn't lifted off for parts unknown, I know that I really don't have to know. All I really need to do is get up, suit up, show up and do the next indicated thing. Ironically enough it's all I've ever needed to know.

I ran into an old friend the other day and after we'd exchanged the usual how are you?' pleasantries, he said he'd been really busy lately. So busy in fact that he had become a human doing instead of a human being. That comment pretty much summed up my previous existence.

When Moses had his burning bush experience he asked God what His name was and God said I Am. That was it. I Am. It turns out that I Am' was my answer too. I am because God said I am and God is God. God is God and I am not and there is tremendous relief in that. God sets my course, plants the seeds of my dreams and provides the power to accomplish them, one day at a time.

I know that now but it took a lot of pain and frustration and finally, near suicidal depression, before I found my truth.

I never did figure out where I was going but I got here anyway. Fortunately for the me that I am now, I eventually hit a point where I realized my drive to be somebody was trashing my life. A low, confused self image led to alcohol in an attempt to escape. The alcohol almost killed me. I couldn't keep up. I was out of control and I couldn't quit living the way I was living. I just wanted to end; to quit being the unfulfilled me I thought I was.

That's when folks showed me another way. The way that involved going to the I Am and admitting I was beaten almost to the point of suicide and asking Him to take over. At that time in my life I was so destroyed, so beaten that despite all the self help books and scripture I'd read, my entire Theology came down to I cant, You can, please help me.'

I am a human being, not a human doing. The way to reach my potential is to quit trying to reach my potential. When I let go and let God' the doing gets taken care of one day at a time. I've been doing that for over 25 years now and I can tell you that for me, it's a much better way of life.

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