Sometimes we have to let go of what we’re holding on to in order to receive what’s next. This lesson recently reached up and shook me hard when I was on the playground with my two-year old grandson.
He had a toy in each hand, and he wanted to climb the stand-alone platform steps that would take him to the top of the jungle gym.
He made it onto the first platform easily enough, since it was only as high as his waist. To get to the next platform, however, he’d have to use his hands to reach up and pull himself higher and thereby atop the platform.
He could have done it.
It would have been an easy distance and height for him to cover, had he chosen to use his hands. But his hands were grasping his toys. I reached out my hands, asking, “Do you want me to hold your toys?” “No!” he replied.
“Too bad,” I thought to myself. “You were so close to getting where you wanted to go. So close to moving to what could have been next. But you wanted to hold on to what you had.”
What I saw in Graham that day I see in myself, in men and leaders I work with, and in organizations I serve. I’m not talking about when the future is unclear or the next steps are confusing, but when we know what they are – and don’t want to let go of what we’re holding onto in order to move to what’s next.
We might be holding on…
… to an attitude, a behavior, a habit, a grudge, a hurt, a harmful relationship, a policy, an old vision, an ineffective (but familiar) way of doing something.
As long as we hold on to it we can’t receive or move into what’s next. Sometimes we have to let go of what is in order to move to what can be.
What are you holding on to that maybe you should let go of?
