Birthdays are foretaste-of-eulogy days. In our birthday cards we get a preview of our funerals. Two friends, in two birthday cards I read today, mentioned how I’ve helped them “sit loose.”
If those two words alone were my final legacy—dayenu. It would be enough. I’d be glad.
Sit Loose
To sit loose means to trust God, come what may. I wrote about it in this post about fast, humble runners, and it made #5 in my top 50 birthday post.
I’m not sure where I first heard that two-word phrase, or if I strung them together on my own. But I know that Robert Murray M’Cheyne, who himself died in 1843 in Scotland at the age of 29, instructed his readers to sit loose.
His logic was simple. He believed the word.
Because the Time Is Short
“What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives, should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away!” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
Maybe M’Cheyne felt it in his twenty-something bones. One way or another he knew the time was short. Reflecting on 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, M’Cheyne wrote,
“Believers should sit loose to everything here on earth. Believers should look on everything in the light of eternity. Value nothing any more than you will do then. Sit loose to the objects, griefs, joys, occupations of this world — for you must soon change them for eternal realities!”
Everything here, as the the author of Hebrews knew, will be shaken.
So the wise, and those of good cheer, sit loose.
God Must Really Love You
“God must really love you.”
That text from dear friend on hearing about my torn Achilles. That it is called Achilles is not lost on me.
According to the myth, Achilles was a great warrior who was invincible in battle except for his heel. This was because, when he was a baby, his mother dipped him into the River Styx to make him invincible. However, she held him by his heel, which meant it did not get wet. Thus, he was vulnerable. That weakness ultimately led to his downfall when an arrow struck him in the heel during the Trojan War.
And I can run 5,000 miles but I cannot lunge for a backhand on a pickleball court.
For one who walks, or runs, morning, noon and evening; who cancelled three “walk & talk” dates on my way to the ER; and who had just begun High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)—including sunrise bursts on the Sanibel beach last week—these months on crutches and knee scooters are a shaking loose.
They are a real test of my mettle. A ruptured Achilles is a test of my trust in the Lord who does all things well.
This injury, this wound, is a fire and a flood and a prising free.
“When each earthly prop gives under,
—L.B. Cowman, “Streams in the Desert, April 3″
And life seems a restless sea,
Are you then a God-kept wonder,
Satisfied and calm and free?”
Some might even say they are a severe mercy. Though he slay me (such a slight slaying, this singular tendon), will I praise him?
When the things we love and lean on are taken, will we be God-kept wonders, “satisfied and calm and free”?
By Grace, Lighthearted and Loose
By his strong grace we will, sit loose, trusting and free.
“Is there not something captivating in the sight of a man or a woman burdened with many tribulations and yet who is as lighthearted as the sound of a bell? Is there not something contagiously valorous in the vision of one who is greatly tempted, but is more than conqueror? Is it not heartening to see some pilgrim who is broken in body, but who retains the splendor of an unbroken patience? What a witness all this offers to the enduement of His grace!”
—J. H. Jowett
Lighthearted means buoyant. It was my word of the year, but really it’s a word for life.
To be buoyant is to bounce back. It is to sit loose and be of good cheer.
It’s what I want to be as I recline with my right foot higher than my heart for two weeks and what I want to be when sponge bathe and scoot around the house on one knee while I wait to a few months to walk.
For Christ’s sake, who loved me and gave himself for me, I want to be lighthearted and free.
Jesus called his followers to “be of good cheer” multiple times. Depending on your Bible translation, the Greek word θαρσέω, or tharseō, comes out as “take heart,” “take courage,” or “be of good cheer.”
Jesus used it in Matthew 9:2 when he was about to heal the paralytic, in Matthew 9:22 when he was about to heal the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, and in Matthew 14:27 as he walked on water toward his fearful disciples.
But those aren’t the words that first came to mind when I thought of good cheer. No, I thought of the words of Christ to The Twelve on the night he was betrayed. He’d just forewarned them of the sadness to come. He said he’d be leaving them soon and going to the Father.
Then he called his friends to sit loose and to be of good cheer.
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NKJV)
Unfastened and Free
To be sure, we will have troubles. People and circumstances will push us under. Achilles tendons in pickleball games will pop. But Christ has overcome.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
Bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, NKJV)
He has unfastened you and set you free.
I’ll close with this Holy Saturday poem. Exquisitely Malcolm Guite describes how it is that we time-bound, crumbling, wasting-away and tendon-popping creatures can yet sit loose, and live free.
XIII Jesus’ body is taken down from the cross
His spirit and his life he breathes in all
Now on this cross his body breathes no more
Here at the centre everything is still
Spent, and emptied, opened to the core.
A quiet taking down, a prising loose
A cross-beam lowered like a weighing scale
Unmaking of each thing that had its use
A long withdrawing of each bloodied nail,
This is ground zero, emptiness and space
With nothing left to say or think or do
But look unflinching on the sacred face
That cannot move or change or look at you.
Yet in that prising loose and letting be
He has unfastened you and set you free.
Dear Abigail, What you shared deeply resonated with me in many ways and made me tear up more than once. “Believers should sit loose to everything here on earth. Believers should look on everything in the light of eternity. Value nothing any more than you will do then. Sit loose to the objects, griefs, joys, occupations of this world — for you must soon change them for eternal realities!” Since Shaun’s passing recently (my husband), these kind of thoughts have had even more bearing and I too desire to “sit loose” in our Heavenly Father’s good, kind, and loving hands.
And this line had me undone completely because I witnessed Shaun living this out daily for years. “Is it not heartening to see some pilgrim who is broken in body, but who retains the splendor of an unbroken patience?” I’m so grateful that we serve a risen Savior who has overcome so that we can truly “be of good cheer”! You will contine to be in prayers, dear friend!
Shaun was on my mind last night as I wrote. He retained that splendor, the mighty power of God was glorious in his patience (and yours)! 🥹 Thank you, friend, for taking time to read and respond. Such a gift to me.