I had a chance to listen to a ministry founder this morning talk about his struggle with turning loose of the ministry. It’s glib and not really helpful to say “Let go and let God.” All entrepreneurs are high control. It’s their/our nature. In our desire to make it right we sometimes smother the baby and shut down the people around us.
In the earliest years of The Gathering, a Board member saw this in me and told me I needed to let go…but I did not know how. So that weekend I went to the story of Moses and his mother and found some help. Maybe it will help you.
A few things happen in this story that helped me work through it. First had the mother kept Moses he would have eventually been found and killed. Her natural desire to hold him close and protect him would have been the cause of his death. As well had he died he would never have accomplished what God intended. Not that God could not have used someone else but He wanted to use Moses and his mother’s love for him ironically was an obstacle to that.
Second, in letting him go she turned him into the hands of a natural enemy who was the only one who could guarantee his survival. Founders feel that way about governance boards and accountability sometimes. “They” are trying to control the vision. “They” don’t understand the threats to this ministry. “They” want to take it away from me. How will it survive without me?
Third, we don’t learn the name of Moses’ mother and father until several chapters into the story. They are anonymous. Moreover, Jochebed (his mother) is willing to become the nursemaid to her own child instead of what every fiber of her body must have wanted to scream out “This is my child. I am the mother. He is not yours.” A founder to truly let go ” must make that sacrifice and accept their role as the nursemaid and not the mother. To be anonymous is hard enough but to be content to play such a role is the litmus test.
So my young friend is off to struggle with those three things and I am looking forward to hearing from him sooner or later.