Let It Go!!! (Proverbs 17-18)

Proverbs 17:14

The beginning of strife is like letting out water,

So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out.

Let it go!! That might be the best phrase to teach us all.  "Just let it go!"   How many times would that advice help us in our navigation through life's challenges with others?   Water has a surprising amount of power as it seeps through cracks and craveous.  Just a small stream can eventual erode some of the strongest fortresses.   It strats small but as the water gains steam and momentum it ushers in certain destruction.    We can't stop it once it gets moving with power.   So, too, a litle stife.  Small in the beginning in mounts up with wings and carries away all those in its path.   We know it is coming.   But, rather than letting a little offense go we turn it into a giant path of destruction.   We make excuses and our feelings move us closer to the edge of outburst.   Biting out tongue, turning our eyes, or squelching our heart is simply something we have to do if we want to stop a quarrel before it has steam to hurt or damage relationships.   If you are wounded by the tongue of another, the look of someone or the words of a friend, let it go.   You will be safer for it.

However, just telling someone to “let it go” is not enough.   We have to also teach them “how” to “let it go.”  When Paul tells us to “put off” our former life (the life we had before we believe in Christ), he tells us “how” to “put off” (or, “let go”):

Ephesians 4:22-23 (ESV Strong's)

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

If we tell people to “let go” of something, then we should also help them “renew” their minds to new thinking patterns.   Paul says the same thing in Romans 12:1-2.   We are to “renew” our minds.   Creating new thoughts, based upon new truth, founded in Christ is the only way to “let it go.”