To yield to God is to give up all the things that don’t matter in this life, for all the things that do. This is not something that you can figure out on your own. If you try, you will become very agitated and confused. Instead, you must “cast off the sin that so easily entangles.” Even your best attempts at serving God count for nothing if they are done in your own strength. They turn sour; they are like “filthy rags”—worth being cast off.

If you find that one day you are inspired, resting in the flow of God’s Spirit, and the next day you are perplexed, it means that you have somehow taken the reins, whether you realize it or not. It means you have failed to trust in God and have taken things into your own hands. You are like a car that has driven off the road but that keeps on going anyway. Counterintuitively, this is how you stay on the road: let go of the steering wheel. God is always there for you. There’s never a moment when He is not speaking to you and directing you. But He won’t keep you from grabbing the wheel. That is your job.

The Good News is that no matter how many times you fail, God is still there, ready to take over once again. The miracle of forgiveness is that God puts a new road right under your feet as soon as you yield to Him again. You are changed, “in the twinkling of an eye.” You are changed because you can see clearly once again. In holding on, you stay in the dark. In letting go, you allow the light. Let go to see the light.