When I was a student at Itawamba Junior College (aka 'Wampus Tech' and 'Harvard on the Tombigbee' for those of ya'll not privileged enough to be from around here) around 1980, a group of people around my hometown of Mantachie started putting together 'pasture parties.'  Now these were not gatherings of the deacons from the local churches, but drunken debaucheries that would start around dusk on a Saturday evening and last well into the wee hours of the morning.   They would set up a flat bed trailer for a stage out in a pasture located far enough off the beaten path that U.S. spy satellites still aren't able to photograph it, set up generators and have live music all night and sometimes all through the next day.  People would bring kegs, liquor, white lightning, and pretty much any other controlled substance the DEA has ever heard of and quite probably a few that they haven't.

One particular Saturday night I had been out on a date with a girl from Tupelo, had dropped her off at her parent's house around midnight and was heading home, when I decided to stop by the pasture party just to see what was going on.  When I got out of my car I could hear over the music the most blood curdling yells I'd ever heard in my life, but I recognized the voice, I knew immediately it was my best friend, Bubba.

I followed the sound of the ruckus and found him at a bonfire about 100 yards from the stage with an almost empty fifth bottle of Jose Cuervo (turned out to be his SECOND fifth that evening).  Now folks, it is a gross understatement to say that he was feeling no pain.  He was dancing around the fire, occasionally jumping over it, and every now and then he'd stop dead in his tracks, throw back his head, and let out a 'Whoooaaaaahooooooo' that I'm sure rattled windows for miles around.  I tried to talk him into letting me take him home, but he'd have no part of it, according to him he was the only one there still trying to have a good time, and it was his patriotic duty to keep the party going.

Now, Bubba's a big fellow, at that time about 6 foot tall and 250 lb of solid muscle (though nowadays it's mostly turned into table muscle), and when he was full of tequila there was really no point in trying to argue with him, but I tried anyway.  It got pretty heated and there were some pretty severe threats exchanged, and finally I threw up my hands and said "Son, you'd come closer to climbing to the top of that pine tree yonder than you would driving yourself home tonight."  Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

"What do you mean I can't climb that blank blankety-blank pine tree?  I'll show you!!"  And off he went.  Now folks this tree was about a foot and a half to two feet in diameter at the bottom, and went way up into the night sky, I'm guessing 75 – 80 feet, but I figured what's the harm, he's not going to make it very far up it, and maybe he'll wear himself out and be ready to go home.  But I was wrong. 

He started up that tree like a monkey, and before I knew it he was already out of sight in the darkness.   Somebody had a flash light, so we spotlighted him, and watched him climb all the way up to about 10 feet from the top of the tree.  He would have gone higher, but he stepped on a small branch that broke with him and almost fell, which seemed to sober him up, at least a little, and he wrapped both arms and legs around the trunk and hung on for dear life.  I told him to climb back down, but he said "I can't, these limbs will break with me."

Back down on the ground we had started to discuss various theories involving chainsaws and logging chains when Bubba had an idea.  He started swinging his weight back and forth getting the tree to swing with him, and of course each swing would go a little further out and bring him a little closer to the ground.  Before long he was coming down to about eye level and the top of the tree was hitting the ground.  We tried a couple of times to grab it, but small branches kept breaking off in our hands, so the next time he came down I hollered to him "Let go!!!"  He hollered back "I can't!!!" and up he'd go again.  "Whooooaaahoooooooo!!!!"  He'd come back down again and I'd holler "Let go!!!"  and he'd holler "I can't!!"  "Whoooaaaahooooo!!!!" and up he'd go again.

After a few repetitions of this, apparently he reached the limitations of the tensile strength of a pine tree and the tree snapped, throwing him straight up into the air, still holding on tight to the top 15 feet of that pine tree.   I don't know exactly how high he went and I don't think he does either, though he still claims he passed a 747 on the way back down.   We lost track of him with the flashlight, but could hear him all the way down:  Whop!! He landed on his back on a limb and it flipped him over and then Whop!! He hit another limb with his front side and it flipped him again and then Whop!! Whop!! Whop!! Whop!! Whop!! Whop!! Whop!! I actually lost count of all the Whops, but I can guarantee you he didn't miss a single limb all the way down, and then finally Whop!!  He landed on the ground right out in front of us, flat on his back, still holding on tight to the top of that pine tree.

It took us several minutes to pry his arms and legs loose so we could get the tree off of him, but we finally did.  He wasn't exactly conscious, he was kind of moaning and groaning, and we were trying to keep his back and neck straight in case he'd broken something, when suddenly his eyes opened wide, he sat up and said "The fire's dying down boys, throw that ol' pine top on it and let's get her going again!!!" and then blacked back out.  He woke up again a few minutes later, got up and walked around, remarkably nothing was broken except the pine tree, but he was pretty banged up and ready to go home and go to bed.  He didn't get up for a week.

Somewhere in the vast uncharted wilderness that is greater Itawamba County, Mississippi there stands a lone pine tree which will never grow any taller, though it tends to grow broader over the years, underneath which is an imprint in the ground which looks a whole lot like my best friend Bubba.

I asked him later why he couldn't let go of the tree when he was so close to the ground those times, and he said "I just couldn't do it, it was all in the world I had to hold on to!!"

Sometimes all of us hold on to things that we shouldn't.  Over the past few months I've heard the phrase "Let go, and let God!!" bounced around a lot but I'm not too sure that those who are saying it truly know what it means.  People will say things like "I was living in a trailer and I needed a better house, so I prayed and "Let go, and let God!!" and God helped me buy that better house!!" or "I was in a dead end job and I needed a better one so I prayed and "Let go, and let God!!" and God helped me get that better job!!"  These are examples of people reaching out in faith to God and asking for his blessings, but these are NOT examples of letting go and letting God.  Did they have the credit resources to pay for that house?  Did they have the credentials and experience to get that job?  The answer is yes.

"Let go, and let God!!" means that after you have received those blessings from God that you are willing and able to place exactly those blessings that you received from God back on His alter and let Him take them away if it suits His plan for you.   Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Isaac was the son God promised Abraham, but God commanded Abraham:

"Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Genesis 22:2

And of course Abraham proceeded to do so and God stopped him at the last minute.

God demands exactly that for every blessing He gives us.  If we are not willing to do exactly that those blessings then become an idol in our lives and come between us and God.  In the January 22 devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest" Oswald Chambers writes:

"The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult.  Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere." 

The Apostle John wrote:

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:15-17

It is wrong for us to say "I know that God wants me to have this because I know that He gave it to me."  Sometimes God gives us blessings just to test to see what we will do with them, and if we are not able to "Let go, and let God!!" those things become a wedge between us and Him, or as I said earlier an idol in our lives.  If we do reach that point, He will take those blessings away because He will not permit us to have any other 'gods' before Him.

Even when we do "Let go, and let God!!" sometimes He takes things away from us for other reasons, sometimes to test us, sometimes we may not ever know the reason why.  Whenever I experience a loss in my life (as I have recently) I always go back to the story of Job.  Even though God Himself described Job as "a blameless and upright man," He permitted Satan to take from Job everything that he had excepting only his life to test Job.  Satan then proceeded to take away his children, his wealth, and his health.  I think it noteworthy that the one thing Satan did not take from Job was his wife, who immediately proceeded (or continued?) to nag him, but that's a lesson for another day.  The main point I'm making here is that even though Job passed the test God never explained to him why.   I've learned through the trials and losses in my own life to say along with Job:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."
Job 1:21

That's not an easy lesson to learn, and I trust God that as with Job, once the time of testing is over He will replace that which was lost with something even better.

And of course the one blessing we should never let go of:

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