Bold Surrender — A LifeWords Devotion

So, humble yourselves under God’s strong hand, and in his own good time he will lift you up. You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern. (JBP)

We can spend, and waste, a lot of time and energy trying to change our circumstances. We storm heaven with our demands that God change things. We use our wit and wisdom to rearrange life so it becomes more humanly manageable. And yet life stubbornly refuses to bend to our will.

While there are times when we rightly seek change and work for change, there are also times when God wants us to stay right where we are. We are quite entitled to pray that God change our circumstances. But it may be he wants to change us by leaving us in our circumstances.

Fighting against God is a battle we can’t win. Better to focus our energies on accepting we are in his hands in the midst of situations we don’t particularly like. Peter describes this as humbling ourselves. Not giving up or being utterly passive, but rather trusting that God has things in hand and will be looking after us no matter what the circumstances.

In this way, we can safely entrust our cares to him. Instead of demanding he change things so as to reduce our anxiety, we trust him to change us so as to reduce our anxiety.

There is a time to fight, and a time to surrender. God grant us wisdom to know the times.

Blessings
David