By: Cheri Fuller
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”
Isaiah 30:15 NIV
From Control to Rest
I’ve found that the more we worry, the more we try to control people or situations. That causes us to be more fearful, especially when the people we’re trying to control resist us or the situation backfires.
How do we get out of this control trap? Fenelon, in his wonderful volume of letters entitled Let Go, written in the seventeenth century and yet just as alive and applicable today, captures the spirit of acceptance: “If you recognize the hand of God and make no opposition to His will, you will have peace in the midst of affliction. Happy indeed are they who can bear their sufferings with this simple peace and perfect submission to the will of God.”
How can you and I experience this kind of quietness and confidence instead of turmoil and worry in the midst of crisis? How can we face whatever comes with acceptance rather than resignation? A look at the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3 gives us insights:
The three young Israelite men were being thrown into the fiery furnace because they refused to bow to the Babylonian idols. They faced a crisis as severe as any we might ever encounter in life. And if God didn’t come and deliver them, they would surely die. Here’s how they were able to walk through the trial without fear:
In addition to all their prayers and worship, they made a commitment:
[They replied to the king], “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16–18 NIV)
David Wilkerson, once the pastor of the Times Square Church in New York City, concludes that we are always to pray in faith, believing that God will answer, yet trusting Him completely with our situation, saying, “But if not, Lord, I’m still going to trust You!”
That’s acceptance at its deepest level: knowing Christ Jesus will come into our crisis and walk through it with us. Yielding ourselves to Him and His will and trusting that whatever happens, He’s faithful and He’ll never leave us or forsake us. The peace and freedom from fear that comes with this kind of confidence in God is sufficient for any of our earthly trials.
© 2015 by Back to the Bible.
“From Replacing Worry for Wonder, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.”