What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
Have you heard the phrase, “You can’t take it with you?”
It reminds us clearly that what we sometimes think is important in life – our family, friends, possessions, status, what we did yesterday or what we’ll do tomorrow is in the end not important.
Detachment means separating from or withdrawing from something.
The spirit of detachment doesn’t mean that we don’t care about our life or the people in it, it simply means that we don’t depend on the exteriors of our life for our happiness.
So, to live with a spirit of detachment is to let yourself be separated from your strong feelings and emotions or attachments to physical things – to not let those define your happiness.
For many this might be a new idea.
Learning Detachment From the Beginning
God wanted to teach us detachment from everything from the very beginning.
During the Christmas season, we recounted how Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world not born in a fine palace with silks and servants. But rather Jesus came into this world in the poorest of circumstances. In a stinky stable with animals and no fine bedding. Just Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and a blanket – that was it. There are no accidents in Jesus’ life – this was on purpose – everything about Jesus’ life is to teach us somethings.
We don’t need material possessions. While we may be blessed with them throughout our life, we should be emotionally detached – if we have them, fine, if we lose them, fine – they don’t and should not define us or our happiness.
Words of Jesus
During this season of Lent, we listen to Jesus’ words. They aren’t words of ambition and comfortable living, they challenge us, in fact, to be uncomfortable by questioning our status quo.
And He teaches us in Luke 10:42 “There is need of only one thing – prayer and focus on Our Lord.”
Other ways we can detach are:
From people’s opinions of us – why do we care what people think? We do our best to be kind and charitable – but we can’t control what others think of us and we should let go of our concern about what others think.
From our own opinion – my dad used to always say, “You can’t argue opinions.” It’s true. Our opinion is just our thought – no more and no less. If others don’t agree with use, they’re entitled to their opinion. We shouldn’t feel the need to always be sharing our opinion with others – be detached from the need to express it all the time.
From material possessions – I love the focus on decluttering or just simplified living. We are a nation that is rich in resources – we have a lot of stuff. We don’t need all the stuff we have and we should do our best to limit what we have – to be detached from more than what we need and sometimes to choose a level of discomfort because we don’t have all we would like.
I think the biggest and most challenging way we can detach is to let go of our expectations and the way we think life should go.
Detaching When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned
We all have in our mind what our lives should be like – but life hands us lots of different circumstances that we didn’t anticipate.
Detachment means living peacefully through those circumstances, depending on God to give us strength when we need it and wisdom to figure out our next steps.
And when we live in detachment of our will and wants, we are free to embrace God’s will and wants for our life – and trust me, He knows better than I do what’s best for me and how to make me happy.
Worry – which is the opposite of detachment – doesn’t help anything or fit into the solution.
Everyday, our peace and our joy are challenged.
We have the control through practiced detachment that we won’t let our circumstances define our happiness.
All you have at the end of your life is your love for God, your love for those around you, and the way you served them.
That’s it.
The Peleton doesn’t come with you – detach.
The opinion of others won’t matter – detach.
Or whether our life followed the route we mapped out at age 23. Living the spirit of detachment will bring freedom and peace.
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