by Katisha Lindee
“I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open.
There’s nothing I hold onto. There’s nothing I hold onto.”
- Nothing I Hold Onto (United Pursuit) -
I’ve always thought this was a strange song. In the words of a friend, “it always seemed like it must be kind of a lame mountain if you could climb it without your hands”.
Yep. Weird.
Until you actually go and climb a mountain. Last weekend, I hiked out to Alligator Falls with a group of my friends. It’s a mosquito-infested, 16km round trip with several “no-shoes-type” creek crossings. The last kilometre is a pretty steep upwards pull which requires you to climb steps and clamber over rocks (turns out mozzies are actually good for one thing … they motivate you to keep moving!)
Thankfully my brother was with the group because without him, I’m pretty sure there would have been unwonted events; wet feet, slips and slides, scraped knees or worse. Whenever things got a little beyond us, he was there to offer a hand to hold onto, or a knee to stand on, or a hoist over a big rock.
Anyway, I was thinking about all of this as I sang the song “Nothing I Hold Onto”. I realised something: if I had been holding onto something, I wouldn’t have been able to accept my brother’s help. If my hands had been filled with something - even if it was a good thing, like a water bottle or my shoes - I wouldn’t have been able to grab his steadying hand and be saved from falling.
How true is this of life’s mountains? How often do I try to scramble over the hard spots, the big rocks and the steep climbs with my hands full of all the things I think will help me? Even if they are good things. How often do I struggle to save myself when all I really need to do is drop all that stuff and just reach out for Jesus? Jesus. The One who is leaning down over the ledge of the unsurpassable rock with outreached hand and saying, “dear heart, let me help you”. And how often do I cling instead to all the worldly things in my hands and try to make it alone, burdened and hampered by all the stuff I just won’t let go of?
Letting go sounds like a hard thing to do. And sometimes it is … whew … sometimes it is the hardest thing to do. But if had put down my water bottle in order to grab my brother’s hand, I wouldn’t have lost that incredibly important item for ever. I would have picked it up again once I was over the rock.
Letting go doesn’t always mean loosing something. It just means that sometimes there are more important things to hold onto.
Katisha has been part of the Anew Conference worship team for the last six years. She is a classically trained violinist by day and a singer, looping artist and multi-instrumentalist by night. Katisha has almost completed her Bachelor of Music degree at the Queensland Conservatorium and is passionate about using music as a tool to share the love of Jesus. She is excited for the adventures God has for her in 2020 which she hopes will include school chaplaincy and continued touring with her music around regional Queensland.
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