Let It Go

Read: Ephesians 4:17-32

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice…                                                             Ephesians 4:31

      I don’t know what it is about balloons that makes them so attractive to kids, but it is obvious that most absolutely love them. They prove it by the way that they bawl when they accidentally let it go into the air or when it pops. You would think the world was coming to an end by the way they bellow and carry on. I’ve seen many kids who were completely inconsolable at the death of a balloon. My own kids are that way. I can see the point in using balloons for decoration and things like that, but one of the best uses of balloons I’ve seen is for mining the helium inside. When I was growing up, we would suck the helium out of the balloon to talk in the crazy chimpanzee voice (Do chimpanzees have voices?) that brings rounds of laughter from all those standing nearby.

     There is one other thing that makes a balloon special that, perhaps, you have never thought of before. Balloons can remind us of what we ought to do in our lives with all those unholy characteristics and qualities in our lives. (Cue the sappy music). Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a wide-open field holding a marker in one hand and a balloon on a string in the other. Think of all the things in your life that are not pleasing to God and write them on the balloon. Ask yourself: Do I have any music that I should not be listening to? Are there television programs that I should not be watching? Am I bitter toward my parents or counselors? Are there inappropriate words or phrases that I have made mine? Am I holding on to a bad attitude? Do I hang out with the wrong friends that I know I should get rid of? There you are, standing in the field with nothing between you and the sky. Now just let it go. Let go of the balloon, and with it, all those things that you know should just not be in your life. Let go of the bitterness, the anger, the friends, the music, the inappropriate behavior. Just let it go and tell God that you are never going to try to take it back.

     The characteristic of a balloon with helium is that it will never come back down. It may pop from the pressure in the atmosphere, but it will never return to the person who let it go. Stand there in your mind’s eye and watch all those bad qualities float out of sight; then determine that you will never go searching for them again.

Quote of the day: “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”