More and more I’m learning that there are some things that are well beyond my control – well, all things, as I was reminded, are well beyond my control. But for some reason, I used to think that control was mine to have, and if I just kept doing what I was doing, that it would work out just the way it was supposed to. Wrong!
Control does not belong to me. Nor does it belong to you. When we learn to let go of the things we cannot control and fully turn over the situation to God, we can experience His perfect peace, and we can live in the fullness of the joy of the life that God has for us. I’m seeing it in my life, and the life of people I talk to that the more we live in expectation of what God is doing and working out, the more we can be in the midst of our storms and still be at peace. We are learning what the meaning of that song said when we were younger, ‘with Jesus in the vessel we can smile at the storm’.
I’ll use the story in Luke 8:22-25. Jesus and His disciples were headed to the other side of the lake, and Jesus fell asleep. A storm started raging and the boat started filling with water. The disciples panicked and went and woke Jesus up saying they were going to drown. Imagine that! The man who can walk on water was going to drown! All Jesus did was: get up, rebuked the winds and raging waters – and then the storm subsided. He then turned to the disciples and asked ‘where is your faith?’ In that moment, even though the disciples had already spent a good amount of time with Jesus, they wanted to know: ‘who is this? He commands even the winds and the waters, and they obey him.’
Friends, Jesus wants to remind you that when you allow Him into your situation, no matter what you are going through, he can calm the storm. A text keeps coming to mind, ‘you have not because you ask not’. James 4:2b. And this means asking according to God’s will. Ask Him to enter your situation so that you may experience His joy and His peace. I’m learning that His peace is a place where you cannot explain how or why you feel the way you do, in the midst of everything that is going on, but you are at rest in Him, because you are trusting Him for the outcome.
Dear Heavenly Father, please open our eyes so that we may see what is causing us to be anxious. Teach us to submit our wills to yours, so that we may experience your abundant joy. And Lord, help us that when we have let go of the situation, that we fully let go and not try to go and pick it back up. Let us always be able to say ‘Thy will be done’, so that we may experience your perfect peace.