By Teri Love, MS, LPC — About two years ago, I received a surprise package from a therapist friend of mine. It was the book, The Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins who is a best-selling author, and has a top-ranked podcast according to the biographical blurb on the book’s dust jacket. Clearly, the book’s message felt life-changing for a lot of people because the edition I read included photos of “Let Them” tattoos sent to the author by devoted readers.
I began reading and quickly formed the opinion that the book is a secular version of the bumper sticker that says: “Let Go and Let God.” I like a lot of the book’s content, but found myself replacing the word “them” on many pages with the word “God.” Robbins concludes the book encouraging readers to focus on themselves. She means well, but from a Christian perspective, her advice is hollow.
Consider the alternative we have as Catholics. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.” The words of the Surrender Novena prayer sound similar: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything!”
I don’t think these are easy words to live by. In fact, I’ve discussed the difficulty of trusting God countless times in therapy sessions and in conversations with family and friends. The most common concern we come up with is how do we truly trust a God we can’t see, and does it mean we just sit around and wait for Him to lead in every circumstance of the day? (The groceries don’t buy themselves!)
Part of the answer can be found by reading further. Proverbs 3:6 says “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” What does it mean to acknowledge God? Right off the top of my head, I think of acknowledgement as short prayers; long prayers; deep conversations; whispered pleas in the midst of traffic jams; Hail Marys before making decisions; keeping the commandments; serving the poor; and loving people.
The wisdom of scriptures and saints is that any act can be an acknowledgment of God when done out of love for Jesus. Since Fulton Sheen was beatified just days ago, I’ll include this quote by him: “Motive is what makes the saint: Sanctification does not depend on geography, nor on our work or circumstances . . . We can take whatever He gives us, and we can make the supernatural best of it. The street cleaner with his broom, the farmer tilling the field with his horses, the doctor bending over the patient, the lawyer trying a case, the student with his books, the sick in their isolation and pain, the teacher drilling her pupils, the mother dressing the children — every such task, every such duty, can be ennobled and spiritualized if it is done in God’s name.”
This sounds like we don’t sit around and wait for him to lead. We acknowledge him and go about our lives knowing that he truly will take care of everything. Mel Robbins got the “let go” part correct in her “Let Them” theory. She detected the need we have for a reminder to surrender. And she offered us a book about it. But we already have one.
