Faith In The City

Peace is not found in control, but in God.Nicole Salmon said that on a devotional I listened to recently, and it has stayed with me.In peace, I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8 NIVDavid wrote that verse during one of the hardest stretches of his life, with real threats coming at him from every direction. And he could still sleep, because his peace was not tied to his circumstances. It was tied to God.Peter is another example of this. The night before he was scheduled to be executed, chained between two guards in a prison cell, he was sleeping so deeply that an angel had to physically strike him to wake him up. That is what real surrender looks like. Not the absence of danger, but peace that holds steady inside of it.David and Peter both had every reason to lie awake. Neither of them did, because their trust was not in their circumstances changing. It was in God.The devotional walked through something I had never thought about this clearly before. Most of what we worry about is completely outside of our control. And worry does not add a single day to your life. It only takes away from the one you are living right now. When you worry over something you cannot control, you do not gain control. You just gain more worry, more anxiety, and less peace.That is why we are told to surrender our troubles to God instead of carrying them ourselves. He fills the gap between where we are and where we want to be. He is the one with control over everything, especially the things we cannot see coming.The devotional said something else that stopped me: the quality of your sleep is often a reflection of how much you actually trust God. If you are anxious and restless at night, it might mean there is something you have not fully handed over to Him.That one made me think harder than I expected to. I have not felt anxious lately, at least not in any way I could name. But these past couple of nights I have had a hard time falling asleep, even when my body felt tired. So I started asking myself the real question. Was this just my body, or was there something underneath it I had not turned over to God yet.I do not have a tidy answer to that yet. What I do know is I took it straight to Him instead of trying to figure it out on my own first. I am praying that He reveals whatever anxiety might be there, known or unknown to me, and that He removes it. I am trusting that He will fill me with His peace and the assurance that He already has complete control over my future. I am holding onto the promises He has already given me in scripture, trusting Him as my Creator, my Father, and the One who sustains me.In Jesus name. Amen.Peace, Love and Joy always,TanyaInfiniteFaithandFavor.com