letting go

The Holdfast

I threatened to observe the strict decree

Of my deare God with all my power & might.

But I was told by one, it could not be;

Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.

Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his:

We must confesse that nothing is our own.

Then I confesse that he my succour is:
But to have nought is ours, not to confesse

That we have nought. I stood amaz’d at this,

Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse,

That all things were more ours by being his.

What Adam had, and forfeited for all,

Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

George Herbert (1593-1633)