The Pursuit of Grace: Let Go and Let God

The Pursuit of Grace: Let Go and Let God.

Surrender isn’t passive—it’s spiritual propulsion.

The Pursuit of Grace is how I execute on Steps 11 and 12 of the Twelve Step recovery journey—not as a ritual, but as a lived strategy. It’s the drivetrain of conscious contact with God, or your Higher Power, and it broadcasts through three core channels: the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Everyday.

Whether you find grace in Mass, AA meetings, or a conversation with the service station clerk, these channels only work if you follow three non-negotiable rules of engagement.

The second rule is: Let Go Let God. Here it is.

You’ve moved with kindness. You’ve taken the odd route. Now comes the hardest part: Let Go and Let God.

This isn’t a bumper sticker. It’s a spiritual velocity move. You’ve mixed the metaphysical ingredients—kindness, curiosity, presence—and turned the hotplate onto serendipitous simmer. Now, you wait. Not like a CEO waiting for quarterly results—but like a friend waiting for grace to arrive unannounced.

Grace doesn’t follow your schedule. It doesn’t respond to your spreadsheets. It shows up in awkward silences, in strangers’ comments, in moments of surrender that feel holy 

Fossil: The Master of the Universe Surrenders

Before I could surrender, I had to understand what I was surrendering. And when I looked at the shelf of my personal inventory—the one I’d been quietly stocking for decades—I saw one label on most of the items: Master of the Universe.

Now, for context: I didn’t call myself that because I thought I was one. I called myself that because I’d become a walking example of life copying art. The term comes from Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe’s satire of Wall Street hubris, and was later popularized by Michael Lewis in Liar’s Poker. It described the kind of trader who thought dominance was destiny—who believed moving capital exempted them from humility.

When I used it in my inventory, it wasn’t a flex. It was a dig. A self-derogatory label for the operating system I’d let run the show.

He’s not a villain. He’s a tactician. A sovereign. A chaos conductor who can move the stars—if the spreadsheet aligns. He’s the costume I wore most often. The one stitched into 80% of my inventory. Not just a mask. An operating system.

He thrives in chaos. He’s addicted to it. When the going’s good, chaos gives him a hit like a drug. But when it turns? Chaos becomes noise. A deafening, internal static that drowns out grace.

He’s the one who takes you from “I’m a failure” to “I’m a god” and back again—all in the same day. That’s why Wolfe and Lewis used him. Because he’s the mindset of a bond trader. A sovereign with a spreadsheet. A tactician with a god complex.

This wasn’t just a flaw. It was my fuel. My edge. My logic. So no—I didn’t want to turn it off. And I still don’t. But I do want to know where it belongs.
The anguish came when reality didn’t match the picture in my head. When the spreadsheet didn’t balance. When the strategy failed. When the chaos I loved turned against me. That’s the double-edged sword. The Master of the Universe doesn’t just build empires. He builds expectations. And when they collapse? He doesn’t grieve. He negotiates. He doesn’t surrender. He recalibrates.

But surrender isn’t recalibration. It’s release. And that’s what he resists most.

Pop Culture Fossils: Surrender in Motion

John Wick (John Wick Series)
A man of vengeance who flickers with grace when he pauses. When he remembers love. When he chooses mercy. His surrender is brief, but powerful. It’s the moment grace finds him.

The Widow (Mark 12:41–44)
She gives her last coins—not because she expects, but because she trusts. Her surrender is total. Her faith is kinetic. She doesn’t wait for a return. She lets go, and lets God.

Jesus
Not guilt, but movement. Not ritual, but mercy. He didn’t die so you could sit in a puddle of shame. He died so you could move, forgive, love, and show grace. That’s spiritual velocity.

Doctrine Thread: Surrender as Propulsion

Letting go isn’t passive. It’s engineered. It’s the moment you build a firewall between your gift and your ego. The moment you decide that your power will serve—not dominate. The moment you choose to be a steward, not a sovereign.

For me, surrender looked like this: I stopped weaponizing my intelligence. I stopped treating every conversation like a negotiation. I stopped dragging my family into my performance theatre. I started listening. I started praying. I started laying my gift down at the gate.

Not forever. Just long enough to be human.

I built a ritual. A checkpoint. A spiritual firewall. When I drive through the electric gate into my farm, I leave the strategist outside. The fixer. The negotiator. The tactician. I leave him at the gate. And I walk into my home as a man. A husband. A father. A witness.

And when I leave again? I pick him back up. Because I still need him—to survive, to navigate, to prosper in the orbit I built.
But my family doesn’t.

Recovery Application

• Let go of the outcome.
• Let grace do its thing.
• You’re not special—but you showed up. That’s enough.
• Surrender isn’t weakness. It’s propulsion
• It’s the firewall between your gift and your ego.
• It’s the moment you stop performing and start connecting.

Rule of Engagement #3: Let Go and Let God

• Spiritual Velocity: Surrender isn’t passive—it’s engineered.
• Warning: Don’t grip the wheel. Grace doesn’t follow GPS.
• Practice: Trust the road. Pray like a friend. Let grace arrive.

A strong advocate for freedom, limited government, and enterprise-driven progress, Jason also draws deeply from his personal recovery journey—an experience that reshaped his life and fuels his commitment to growth, contribution, and principled living. Through writing, speaking, and service, he continues to learn, share, and speak with purpose.

I can be engaged (on a remunerated or volunteer basis) to sit on Boards, Committees, Advisory and Reference Group Panels, and to speak to Business, Community, and Youth groups. I’m also open to providing comment to media on topics where I have relevant experience or insight. Please feel free to make contact.