Please allow me to share with you a passage from Jesus Calling: Seeking Peace in God’s Presence written by Sarah Young. It is with this book and a cup of coffee that I begin each day. The author writes the devotional as if Jesus was talking directly to you and closes with a collection of scriptures from the Bible, sharing God’s promises on the pertaining subject.. Here is the beginning of today’s offering:
SEEK MY FACE, and you will find not only my presence but also My Peace. To receive My Peace, you must change your grasping, controlling stance to one of openness and trust. The only thing you can grasp without damaging your soul is My hand. Ask my Spirit within you to order your day and control your thoughts, for the mind controlled by the Spirit is Life and Peace.
BAM! There it was– right between the eyes! “The only thing you can grasp without damaging your soul is God’s hand.” Even as I read those words, I could feel God gently prying my fingers loose from something I had about strangled to death in my grasp for years. I kept thinking if I held onto “it” tightly enough, for long enough, I could help make it better. The cause was worthy, God would be glorified, and I was determined to help Him out. Defeat and endless frustration were my only accomplishments as my fingers turned purple from a resolute grip. Though God had approached me countless times in the last decade of years about this, today I did what He asked. I let go of something that was damaging my soul and reached swiftly, determinedly for the hand of God where there is the promise of peace. Why had I settled for discontent and discouragement so very long? “It” was something I mistakenly loved too much to release.
Sound familiar? The crazy part is that with God’s help I have experienced that precious peace when letting go of quite the list of things in my life. How strange that in some situations the comfort of the familiar keeps us trapped in self-imposed misery. No more!
My hand is now grasping the nail-scarred hand of Jesus where He will lead me to more productive pursuits for His Kingdom’s glory. The “it” of my former grasp is no longer my cause to champion. “It” is in God’s hands where it should have been all along. Praise the Lord! I had only served to make a mess of “it” as “it” had made a mess of me. Let go of your “it” and interlace you fingers with His in openness and trust! Let’s do this together and enjoy the life and peace promised us in His presence. Seek His Face! To God Be the Glory!
Sound familiar? The crazy part is that with God’s help I have experienced that precious peace when letting go of quite the list of things in my life. How strange that in some situations the comfort of the familiar keeps us trapped in self-imposed misery. No more!
My hand is now grasping the nail-scarred hand of Jesus where He will lead me to more productive pursuits for His Kingdom’s glory. The “it” of my former grasp is no longer my cause to champion. “It” is in God’s hands where it should have been all along. Praise the Lord! I had only served to make a mess of “it” as “it” had made a mess of me. Let go of your “it” and interlace you fingers with His in openness and trust! Let’s do this together and enjoy the life and peace promised us in His presence. Seek His Face! To God Be the Glory!
**I know this picture has nothing to do with any of the above. Was feeling the” butterfly love” thing today!