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March 24

The Challenge of Relinquishment

The Christian’s life is gaining a new life in Christ. It is also about leaving behind an old way of life. And it also has to do with the art of relinquishment.

The English medieval Christian mystic Richard Rolle made this

challenge: “Take heed also: to seek more than enough is foul covetousness; to keep back necessaries is frailty; but to forsake all things is perfectness.”83

All of this is a challenge for us Christians in the twenty-first

century. We think we never have enough. We believe what is ours is for us alone. And we have the idea that God is supposed to give us things, not us giving anything to God.

It is true the Christian life is about receiving much: salvation, the gift of eternal life, the gift of the Spirit. But it is also about giving. Living the Christian life has to do with giving ourselves to God and to the purposes of God’s kingdom and to the love and service of the neighbor.

In giving ourselves to God and the neighbor we learn the art of

relinquishment. For some this is being generous with financial resources. For others it is being hospitable. For others again it is mentoring or helping others. For some it is not marrying. For others it is relinquishing a career trajectory. For some it is giving all of one’s possessions.

There is no formula here, only acts of love and generosity and self-giving. Here the manifold promptings of the Spirit come to startling clarity in the various ways in which we can honor God.

Thought

In self-giving we follow the way of Christ.