What keeps you up at night?
Sometimes it’s too much caffeine for me. Sometimes it’s the anticipation of the next day.
But most of the time it’s because I’m feeling fearful or anxious about something. I rack my brain, trying to figure things out or trying to make sense of crazy circumstances.
And instead of finding solutions, I just lose sleep.
Dr. Dan Allender puts it this way in Hope When You Are Hurting, “But life is disturbing, and we struggle with what God is up to.“
Can I get an Amen on that?
How many times have you thought those very words, how many times have I said them? “God, what are you doing?” As hard as we try, there are times when we cannot figure out what God is up to.
Life is hard to figure out.
We live within layers of life, where things are happening simultaneously around us, to us, and by us, while we try to make sense of it all. When we try to figure it all out, we default to a formula where our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether He loves us.
Good things happening = God is good and happy with us.
Bad things happening = God is bad, weak, or mad at us.
This formula looks simple and easy to follow. But life cannot be lived through a formula. Life is complex and complicated, a mix of joy and sorrow at any given moment.
Instead of a formula, we must live by truth. This truth is a great place to start: We were not made to live in fear. The opposite of fear is trust.
Jesus came to set us free from the fears that keep us up at night. From the sin patterns that keep us feeling distant from God, We can find our rest in Him.
“He restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:3)
The word for restores that is used here means to turn away. The Lord turns our soul away. Not away from Him, but away from the things that harm our soul. He turns our soul back toward Him, where it is protected and safe.
God is constant and unchanging, while life around us swirls in chaos.
Instead of letting our life experiences shape our definition of who God is and whether He loves us, what would it look like if we let who God is and His love for us shape our definition of our life experiences? This idea is more than playing around with words. The difference between these two is the difference between hope and despair. I’ve experienced it in my own life.
The more we know Him, the more we know His tender love for us, the more we can trust His hand in our lives, even when we don’t understand what He is doing.
This life begins the process of being set free, of being released from our sins and fears, and of finding our rest in God. The process will be complete the moment we step into His presence, face to face at last.
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