You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
Isaiah 26:3-4 ESV
Living in a constantly changing world, it can be difficult to discern the lies from the truth. I’m not talking about who’s carrying the fake news, I’m talking about the lies that the world tells us—lies like: we are in this alone, we are not safe, we are not protected, we must take control. Our hearts wrap themselves around these lies give birth to the fears that consume our minds. When we meditate on those fears, it’s impossible to relate to our spouses in a way that’s understanding or loving because all we see is our fear.
The truth is God loves you and He is for you. The truth is God promises to protect you, to be your refuge and your safe haven. The truth is none of this is taking God by surprise. He is sovereign over everything that is happening in the world right now, and He promises to work all things out for good. The truth is God already saved you from your worst possible trial—eternal damnation, and if He saved you from that, He has a plan to save you in this. We need to trust in those promises if we are going to find His peace in this madness.
Because he trusts in you—that’s so much easier to type than to live out—but this is how we find His perfect peace. How are we to know His perfect peace when the world is chaotic? We trust in Him. How are we to know His perfect peace when our spouse is giving in to fear? Lean on, trust, and be confident in Him—we continue to hear these messages throughout scripture. The more challenging our life circumstances, the more we need to affirm and lean on our confident trust in Him. During difficult times, our natural tendency is to rely heavily on our own understanding. We see the chaos in the world right now, and we try to understand why it’s happening or we try to minimize it with rationalizations. We try to figure out how to solve the problem, or we frantically try to figure how to keep ourselves and our families safe. All these distracting thoughts pull us away from the One who has the answers.
We must recognize our human understanding is not up to this task, it will fail every time. Because the world is in a fallen condition, it may seem as if He’s not in control. Everywhere we look, we see brokenness—broken relationships, broken hearts, broken lives. But we can take heart as we live in this broken world, knowing that his eternal purposes have been worked out in our challenges before we even face them. Our troubles are part of his sovereign Master Plan, and they’re achieving eternal glory that far outweighs them all. He has a purpose and a plan in this chaos, and He promises it is for good.
I can think of so many difficult times in my life when I didn’t trust Him in times of trouble, and took matters into my own hands. I can forget in the moment how much He loves me and how He wants to grow me. My controlling nature takes over, and I look for solutions to problems that aren’t mine. In a flash, my peace is destroyed. The anxiety in my heart starts pouring out of my mouth, and I find myself shouting harsh words at my husband. If I want peace in my marriage—the kind of perfect peace He promises, then I need to cover my fears with a trust so deep in Him that the fears can’t breathe.
I’m learning, slowly, but I am learning, to trust Him in the waiting—in the waiting for answers, in the waiting for solutions, in the waiting for an uncertain future. He has a plan, and it’s better than anything I could devise. I just need to wait on Him. He continues to prove it to me over and over every time I chose to trust Him.
If you are longing for that perfect peace, the deep sense of wholeness that has staying power, the peace that comes from being completely content, then trust Him. When you trust Him completely, that perfect peace will pour out of you and cover the fears trying to steal your marriage.
Press on ~ you are loved 💗
Amen! He is in complete control. You are right, we tend to pull the reins and think about how we can make a difference in the situation as if we are in control of it. The best thing to do is to rely on Him and fully trust in our amazing Lord and Savior. Thank you for this post and for being wonderful you!!