Peace Out of Control

“Never been so free caught in Your love for me
Never felt more secure knowing Your heart, Lord”

These lyrics from Housefires have been echoing in my ears as I have felt simultaneously broken and more whole than ever. This season of life has been filled with the loving, loud whispers that say “You have been living like someone who is blind and stuck in a stagnant bog. I want to show you more…but in order for me to show you more, you have to accept how little you know,  let go of the lies you have believed about me,  stop trying to defend yourself and instead let me hold your hand as I call you closer to me… Let me pull you out of that miry clay”.
 
I have been put on my knees so that I can have the burden of independence taken off my shoulders. I thought I would feel free when I could do it all by myself. I told myself that that is when He would be proud of me. When I have enough faith to live without Him… Yes. I actually believed that. Perhaps unknowingly, but still, I believed that ridiculous lie. The truth is, He never called me to live independent from Him.
 
So what now? What do you do when you realize you’ve been living in the shadow of an ugly, heavy lie? Well, you pray. When I prayed, there was silence. Isn’t that the way it goes? We expect God to move and He is quiet. Well in the silence, in the waiting, Romans 12 and John 15 kept coming up. In conversation, in sermons, all around but in subtle ways. So I sat on them for a while and soaked it up. And He showed me He wasn’t being silent. He was in control. His way.
 
So I am letting Him renew my mind and reteach me things I thought I already knew, but later came to find that I knew a flawed/false version of them. I thought that if I had my life together enough, then I would feel in control and secure; then I would be satisfied with my level of spirituality. But He is the vine. I can do NOTHING apart from Him. He is showing me more and more that it’s not about me. It’s not about me being strong enough or wise enough or even well-versed in the Bible enough to be a good Christian. It’s about glorifying Him with each breath that He has given me. The more He reveals this truth to me, the less pressure I feel on my chest.
 
At first there was fear. Fear of letting go. Fear of losing control. But it’s not about my ability to control my life. I may never feel the comfort that the world tells me I should live in. My life might always be out of my control, but that doesn’t mean I can't live in peace. That doesn’t mean I can't live securely. Because He has more for me. Because what the devil, the world, and my circumstances use for evil, He will use for good. Cause He is in control. He is sovereign. He is better than anything I could ever understand. My fear turned into freedom as I surrendered to Him. I stopped fighting the hands that were always just trying to hold me and I realized the depth of the song. I have never been more free than when I am caught in the heart of our Lord. I am never more secure than when He lets me know Him more.

Author | Jennifer Daniel