Prayer of Relinquishment
The dictionary definition of relinquishment is to give up, to abandon. When I think of giving up and letting go I think of a tug of war battle. Each team leans away from the other believing in it’s own strength, sweating it out until one team falters and can’t hang on. One team gives up and abandons the game. It is important that sometimes when we sit down with our Father, we too, give up.
Palms down.
In early March 2020, I felt that I had everything in control. I was pleased with my life.
COVID hit me hard. Growing up relatively poor taught me to live with little, so I missed some of the angst. But. Much of what I relinquished during COVID was what had given my life meaning. Two weeks after shutdown I was to have spent a week at outdoor school with my sixth grade class. Normally it would be the highlight of my year. Instead, for two years, without notice, I administered poorly written online courses and begged students to show up on their computers.
Once we were able to leave our homes this is a list of what I did outside of our home from March 2020 – April 2021:
Bank: 1
Dollar Store: 3
Plant Nursery: 3
Friend 1: 1
Friend 2: 20
Friend 3: 4
Specialty Store: 5
Place of Employment/School: 11
Hair Stylist: 3
Massage: 6
Library: 8
Safeway: 3
Cutsforth’s grocery store: once a week
Hotel visits: 2
Clenched fists.
By April 2021 I felt that I’d relinquished enough. No teaching in a real classroom. No visits to relatives. No in person church. No worship leading with my friends. No restaurants. No Portland. Even walking down the street in Canby was different. I’d walk across the street if I was to meet anyone on the sidewalk.
On the other hand, I’d only lost one dear one. Many people lost their livelihoods. I’m somewhat embarrassed to put it out there that I felt loss during COVID. I’d escaped without even experiencing COVID itself. BUT my life changed. I thought that growing up relatively poor was my big lesson in life. It wasn’t.
Giving up life experiences during COVID helped me understand what relinquishment means. It is heart wrenching. It is leaving dreams behind. It means not being in control. It means expectations be dashed. Which means that I may or may not be prepared to relinquish anything ever again. Have I shut down after COVID? Do I no longer trust God because He let COVID happen? Do I ignore the need for relinquishment because I’ve had enough?
True relinquishment takes us to the garden of Gethsemane. “Not my will but yours be done,” Jesus taught us. God’s choice. But before God’s decision, it was Christ’s. Christ made the choice to relinquish His right to life and be crucified. We can’t possibly understand all that Jesus gave up while in the garden. We suppose He was facing grisly death. We suppose that He was torn in two with the knowledge that, in death, He would be separated from His Father. He may have also been thinking about leaving his relatives and friends. He may have been fearful of the loss of control. He may have been thinking about some of the things we leave behind when we mourn.
Jesus was able to trust God during difficult times because He spent much of His the rest of His time worshiping and listening for His Father’s voice. Christ was sure of His Father’s devotion to Him. Jesus was sure of His (and our) future, though sweating blood because of what He’d have to experience in His near future.
And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Ephesians 12:1b-2
If Jesus experienced all sin (2 Corinthians 5:21) before He beat it, He goes before us, understanding both the good and bad things that we’d rather not give up.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:15-16
Richard J. Foster describes the prayer of relinquishment:
Struggle is important because the prayer of relinquishment is Christian prayer and not fatalism. We do not resign ourselves to fate. We are not locked into a pre-set, determinist future. Ours is an open, not a closed, universe. We are “co-laborers with God” as the Apostle Paul put it – working with God to determine the outcome of events. Therefore our prayer efforts are a genuine give and take, a true dialogue with God. And relinquishment is our full and wholehearted agreement with God that his way is altogether right and good.
The Prayer of Relinquishment is letting go, a release with hope, a confident trust in the character of God. Even when all we are able to see is the tangled threads on the backside of life’s tapestry, we know that God is good and is out to do us good always. And that gives us hope to believe that we are the winners regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish. God is inviting us deeper in and higher up. There is training in righteousness, transforming power, new joys, deeper intimacy. Besides, often we hold so tightly to the good that we do know that we cannot receive the greater good that we do not know. And God has to help us let go of our tiny vision in order to release the greater reality he has in store for us.
Assignment:
Where are you struggling? What are you worried about? How have your prayers been left unanswered? Is there something that you need to relinquish? Here is this week’s assignment>
Palms Up, Palms Down*
Sit in a comfortable position.
Invite the presence of God.
Palms down
Place your palms on your legs facing down: symbolic that you are giving your requests to God.
Name your worries or anxieties.
Imagine yourself releasing them to God. You may picture the hands of the Father’s hands receiving.
Pray: Not my will, but Thine be done.
Listen.
Palms Up
Turn your hands palms up. Ask Jesus for His peace, courage, presence, love or a plan of action.
Notice the quiet. Rest. Receive peace and power in the presence of God. Receive a particular promise from scripture. Accept reassurance, clarity, direction.
Believe in God’s active and powerful love in you and allow His presence to be more than enough.
*Palms Up, Palms Down: The Prayer Course. https://downloads.24-7prayer.com/prayer_course/2019/resources/pdfs/9%20Palms%20Up,%20Palms%20Down.pdf
Perspective: Growing Edges, Richard J. Foster, https://renovare.org/articles/the-prayer-of-relinquishment
Leave a comment