The Greatest love story of all time began with an act of letting go. God chose to let go of His only begotten son. He chose to let Jesus leave His Kingly place in heaven where He was seated at the right hand of the Father and chose to let Him be born in a stable, only to be insulted, rejected, condemned, trampled, and eventually murdered by humanity.
He knew all this, and still chose to let Him go.

He chose to let go to let Love happen.
Because, letting go was the gateway to Love being born and us being born again into God’s family.

Think of the parable of the prodigal son. We all could tell from the start, the younger son was greedy, selfish, and self-serving in his nature. He was a ‘take, take, take’ kind of person, and he knew his Father was a ‘give, give, give’ kind of person. The Father knew his son. The Father would have known, without a doubt, that the moment the son left home, he would meet ruin, waste, and hit rock bottom. The Father knew the hurt, damage and suffering that awaited the son the moment he left.

Knowing this, the Father could have persuaded the son to stay. Knowing the son’s nature, the Father could have made a proposition to offer his son all the money, all the luxury, all the desires of his heart if he stayed by his side. He could have offered more than his share of the inheritance if the son remained home, where he was safe and protected. He could have continued the cycle of ‘give, give, give’ and ‘take, take, take’ for the sake of protecting the son.
The Father could have protected the son by refusing to let him go and giving more and more of himself to make him stay home.

The idea of the Father sacrificing his wealth and wellbeing for the sake of His son seems like a heroic act of love, at least to me it does. But, the Father didn’t do this. He let go knowing what would happen to the son. He did the unheroic thing. And this seems cruel. At least to me. But really, it was a greater act of love. It was a choice only true love and true trust could make.

Holding someone you love close to protect them from an inevitable pain is noble. But letting someone you love walk into an inevitable pain, trusting they will make their way back home of their own accord, is love. Sometimes, letting go of someone you love, is an act of trust. Not in them. But in God. Because it means you trust that when they hit rock bottom and grapple with suffering, God will encounter them and lead them to the Father’s house. You trust that they will not be forsaken by the Faithful one. You trust God with their wellbeing more than you have been entrusting yourself with it.

You know your capability. You know your reliability. You know you can protect them. You know you’re good for them. But what you don’t know, is that you’re standing in the way of them encountering the one true God. What you don’t see is that you’re taking away their choice to return home.

And a love without room for choice, without free will, without a space to make mistakes, couldn’t be further from the true kind.

That’s why even at the cost of a grieving heart, the Father honours our free will.
He waits on our permission to love. He waits on our choice to let Him in.
He lets us go so we can let Him love.
Instead of Him trapping us within a love we both know is what we need, instead of imprisoning us in a love we both know is perfect, the Father waits on us.

And when in that valley, with grazed knees and remorseful hearts, we call on Him, it is in that very moment that perfect love will invade, flood, consume, transform and rest upon us. Because when we say yes, God doesn’t waste a single second to get to us and hold us in an embrace we’d never want to let go of.So, today’s the day, to lay down our fear-driven love, our insecure hearts and our worry-laden minds, and let Perfect love have its way.

Now’s the time to let go and let Love.