Two of my favorite words in Scripture are found in Song of Songs 1:2: “Let Him.” Each time my eyes fall upon them, each time they come to mind, or each time they are spoken, I stand in the middle of a collision of simplicity and complication.
In the Bible courses I teach, I often speak of the denotation and connotation of words. One serves as the more “official” of meanings, whereas the other can be the cultural or personal definition of a word. I explain to my students that the connotations of words typically branch off and connect to our emotions and experiences with those words. The collision that surrounds me is the collision of those two things: the simplicity of what two simple words truly mean, and the complication I experience when I bask in their meaning to me.
Quite literally, “let Him” means to not prevent the Creator and Ruler of the universe.
Historically, my experience with these words has consisted of an initial acceptance of them, and then a recounting of all of the strife, pain, suffering, betrayal, and trauma I have walked through in life. I have wavered between knowing with my entire being that my God does not cause that evil but births beauty from its ashes and stepping a little too far into those dark moments. When I have stepped too far into them, I have doubted - or forgotten - His goodness.
But I know that I know that I know that He is only ever good.
He allows sin to occur knowing the consequences of it and knowing the choices we will make as a result of it. He knows who will choose to continue in that sin and who will have to walk away because of their choice to remain in sin. He knows where He will lead us from there, who He will lead us to, and He knows all of the wonders of our futures because He has prepared them.
If I am not careful to recognize His goodness with praise and thanksgiving, if I am not careful to find the joy in the way He uses the fallenness of this world for His glorious purposes, I will step back into the fallenness in my story and I will forget His goodness.
I must Let Him do what He does - which is only ever good - and praise Him as He does it.