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Acceptance: The Door to Peace - Part Three

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



What Acceptance Is and Isn’t

Sometimes we equate “acceptance” with an attitude of “anything goes”: I’ll accept any behavior my husband or children dish out. Instead, acceptance is embracing and dealing with the problem behavior while loving the person. For example, if you discover your son has a drug problem, acceptance is admitting and acknowledging that he has a drug problem. Nonacceptance of that fact is denying his drug use and pretending it doesn’t exist. If you’re accepting the problem, you are:


• There to get him help, which may involve loving confrontation and arranging for treatment.

• Accepting him as a person, but not his inappropriate behavior.

• Setting boundaries at home.

• Listening to the needs of his heart and praying for him.


All the while, you are loving him unconditionally in that sickness; doing whatever common sense, the Bible, and reliable counsel advise you to do. None of the above includes being a doormat for your son, enabling his behavior and drug abuse to continue.


Acceptance doesn’t mean you quit praying and resign yourself to a negative future; it doesn’t mean becoming irresponsible or giving up. While it isn’t any of these things, it is realizing that you can trust God—trust Him to bring an answer, though perhaps not the answer you’d expected and to weave things into a pattern for good even out of the trying situation or problem. It is knowing that when you are tuned in to God and His Word, and asking Him, He will show you His part. But if there is nothing you can do to change today’s situation, acceptance is trusting God to get you through anything.


Acceptance is facing the storms of life with God’s peace, which will bring you into the reality of the now (instead of the far-off fantasy) and allow you to see more of what He’s doing and what He’s called you to today. At the same time, walking in this kind of acceptance and trust in God will drain away worry, fear, and anxiety.



© 2015 by Back to the Bible.


“From Replacing Worry for Wonder, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.”


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