Sorry I ran out of time earlier.Bootstrap wrote:I'm not sure if you are agreeing with what I said and adding to it or disagreeing with what I said. I definitely like what you said here. Like the English concept of "letting go", Gelassenheit can take on a lot of different meanings, and what it means to any of us may have a lot to do with which Scripture we are thinking of at the time or which life experiences we have had or what we have read or what sermons we have heard.silentreader wrote:I guess in my mind the only true Gelassenheit is the one that flows from;Bootstrap wrote:When we really keep our eyes on Jesus, we learn to trust him with everything, and we learn that we can trust him even when we don't understand, even when things look terrible. When a fellowship has people who do that, it changes their community in profound ways. Even a few people whose lives look like that can make a huge difference, they are the mustard seeds.
If we know we can trust Jesus, we can let it go. We can lay our burden down. We can put our lives in his hands. We know that his will is better for us than our own will. We know that his wisdom and understanding are far beyond anything we can grasp with our own minds. We know that his plan for us is good, even when it makes no sense to us. When we let these things go, that changes our hearts. God is always good, he is always wise, and our lives are in his hand.
That is true even for those of us who have suffered a lot, sometimes at the hands of fellow believers. That is true even for those who have been abused. Knowing that God is good, we can let it go, we can forgive, we can put it in God's hands. I often find that those who have suffered the most, in situations that make no sense, are often best able to teach real faith.
That is true even for martyrs. Can you imagine what it is like to be trust God when you are tortured or when you see your spouse or children tortured, knowing that you might be killed? That is the Gelassenheit we see in the lives of many Anabaptist martyrs.
Galatians 2:20 English Standard Version (ESV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
It is then that we can wait on and rest in the Father's will, as Jesus did.
If you had to use English instead of German, how would you describe what you mean by Gelassenheit for that text? Do you have a working definition of what Gelassenheit means to you?
I don't consider my definition to be any better than some of the others put forward but at this point in my understanding I would call it 'letting go'...of self, a condition driven by what Paul speaks of in the Galatians verse.
meet