spiritual rest

Cultivating Peace When Life Is Crazy

November 19, 2020 By Carol Whitaker 2 Comments

Do you have a situation in your life driving you crazy?

I’ve got one that keeps popping up in my life. Even I say in advance that I’m going to approach the situation without losing it, I find, more often than not, that I do the exact opposite.

Recently, I had a string of days that stretched me thin. I had a lot of prep to do for a get-together at my house. The pressures of my kids’ schedule had been bearing down on me and, to top it all off, conflict popped up with another person. I had had enough.

So, it shouldn’t have been surprising that in the midst of all of the drama, still feeling stressed and agitated, I vented about my frustrating situation (with hysterical tears) to a complete stranger. I felt embarrassed by my lack of self-control and oversharing of the situation. Why had I allowed myself to unload so passionately and thoughtlessly?

Ever been there?

Colossians 3:15 says: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

Two observations we can make:

How We Can Experience the Peace of God

1. Jesus is the Peace-giver.

The passage tells us to allow the “peace of Christ to rule in [our] hearts.” Jesus is identified as the One who gives us peace. And His peace is unlike what the world offers. Jesus says elsewhere in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Christ’s peace is more than a fuzzy “kumbayah” feeling, although it can be that. Christ’s peace is that which can boss our unruly emotions around and bring them into submission. The word “rule” in the verse is a term used in Olympic games where a person would preside over the games and maintain order. The verse tells us that we to allow God’s peace to rule or govern us — crazy emotions and all.

As The Life Application Study Bible says, “When we have a clash of emotions we ‘decide’ between conflicting elements by using a rule of peace.” In others words, we decide to allow the peace of God to dictate our responses rather than simply allowing our emotions to dictate us.

2. Because Jesus is the Peace-giver, we can come to Him for peace.

Knowing that Jesus is the Peace-giver, how can we, as believers, “decide” for His peace to rule over us? What about those times when it feels like our feelings decide for us? When I prayed to have understanding of this verse, God reminded me not only that Jesus is the Peace-giver, He reminded me that we need to go to the Peace-giver to receive peace.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (emphasis mine). Interestingly, the Amplified translation of Colossians 3:15 reads like this: “Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]” (emphasis mine).

We can know Christ and have asked Him in our life and still live without His peace. It is walking daily with Him that activates that peace to rule over our hearts and minds.

In my situation where I overshared with a person, I started my day without spending that time with the Lord and spewed toxic emotions on the first person to ask me how I was doing. Of course, it felt good to share my frustrations. But, later that day, I still felt burdened. I finally went to the Lord in prayer and sat for a few minutes with Him. I felt too anguished to say much, but in telling Him how I felt, a tranquility came over me and the hysteria inside calmed.

We can have peace even in the midst of challenging circumstances when we stay connected to Jesus through daily prayer and the reading of His Word. And this peace isn’t just a personal peace for our own benefit, this is a peace that will affect our relationships with others as well. When we are better able to control our responses, we will find it easier to maintain peace with others around us — even when we have differing opinions on an issue.

To Increase Our Peace — Add Thanksgiving

At the end of the passage we are instructed not only to cultivate the peace of God by spending time with the Peace-Giver, we are instructed to give thanks. So many times, even in prayer, when we are distressed, we focus on merely telling God what we are unhappy about and what we need. While telling God how we feel is going to improve our overall outlook and mood, we can also maintain our peace by expressing gratitude to God even in the midst of our most difficult situations — both in prayer and throughout the day.

Will we sometimes fail and lose it even when we carve out this time for the Lord? We will! And in those instances we need to give ourselves grace. Some days we might face unexpected circumstances where quiet time isn’t possible or we do spend time with God and our flesh still takes over. We are not going to be perfect in managing our emotions. When we fail, we can ask for His forgiveness and apologize if we’re offended or hurt someone else in our anger. The verse, I believe, isn’t to make us feel guilty about all the times we’ve missed the mark.

Rather, by emphasizing that we need the peace of God and thanksgiving to govern our emotions, Paul gives us the necessary tools to navigate the inevitable conflicts and irritating circumstances that will get on our last nerve. By spending time with God, we will not have to waste time trying to fix circumstances or people to work the way we want so we can have peace. We can maintain our calm and internal peace even in the midst of aggravating circumstances.

Doesn’t that sound better than losing control?

Related Resources:

A Reason to Give Thanks: As we enter into the thanksgiving season, it may be hard to find reasons to be thankful. Storms are tearing through communities. Civil unrest continues on in many cities. Our nation is divided along political, religious, and racial lines. Covid-19 rages on. How we can we think of giving thanks? The Bible tells us to give thanks in all circumstances — not because we are thankful for the situations, but because we can be thankful in the midst of the circumstances. Thankfulness is necessary to help us navigate life’s chaos and still maintain the peace of God. Join me for the next few posts where I put the spotlight on gratitude.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

Learning to Depend on God

November 3, 2017 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

“I can do it myself!” my daughter announced as she raced ahead of me down the sidewalk. My heart did a little sideways flip-flop as I watched her neon shoes hit the pavement, causing her Lalaloopsy backpack to bounce against her narrow frame.

It was the second day of kindergarten. At my oldest daughter’s pleading, I had allowed her to ride the bus home from school. As the bus rumbled to a stop and the kids filed out, I did not catch sight of her. Worried that she had been placed on the wrong bus, I peered in to ask the driver and found my daughter giggling with two new friends on the front seat.

Looking surprised to see me, she jumped out of her seat and bounced down the stairs onto the sidewalk. Her feet had barely hit the pavement before she whirled around and insisted, “I can do it myself!”

Obviously, she had no idea where to exit because this was her first time riding the bus home, but rather than admit her need for my help, she declared that she would have been just fine had I not leaned in and collected her.

Watching that determined little girl skip away down the sidewalk, I felt a rustle in my spirit. Isn’t this what I do to God on a regular basis? How often does He fetch me off the “bus” only to see me claim that it was all my own doing?

Perhaps that heart flutter I felt was because I am often the little girl in this interchange. I am the one telling God, “I can do it myself.”

Independence as a Coping Mechanism

A can-do spirit has always been stitched into my DNA. My parents would most likely corroborate, but in looking back, I also developed self-reliance as a weapon I used to fight back against circumstances I couldn’t control.

Unfortunately, I had some situations in my childhood where I tried to voice my needs, and I was answered with irritation, anger or silence. I soon discovered that it was easier not to assert myself in some situations. Easier not to create a problem.

I became self-sufficient so that I wouldn’t impose on anyone. I built a fortress of one to protect myself. I didn’t realize that whether or not people always have good reactions to me, I need to share my needs. God doesn’t want me to cover up who I am in an unhealthy way to please others. I am not a problem if I speak up or express how I feel.

Giving up Self-Sufficiency for God-Dependency

Self-sufficiency wasn’t the only way that I tried to manage those people around me and make them like me; I also made the decision to be really useful. Not only would I never inconvenience the people in my life by expressing what I wanted, but I would also display how productive I could be — how successful. I would prove to everyone I was worth it.

Particularly in college and the first few years of teaching, I became extremely performance-driven. Although I didn’t recognize it as such, I was relying on my own fleshly attitudes to make it through my life. I believed in God, but I didn’t really know that He could help me with all the finite details of my emotions. I didn’t think He cared about that. My “It’s all up to me. I have to make this happen” attitude in college took a toll on my body.

I developed a nervous stomach and paralyzing fear and anxiety. While other people agonized over the extra pounds they were gaining, I fit easily in size zero jeans. All of my worrying whittled me down to very thin. One particular Sunday, I went forward at church for prayer when stress had brought me to the point of near collapse — and the preacher happened to say something about the cause of anxiety during the prayer time: fear.

A light bulb went off in my head, and I began to see how my terror that I wouldn’t measure up or succeed was paralyzing me and causing me to over-work myself in an effort to succeed. When I realized that the antidote to fear is trust, and I could hand over my worry to God and rest, my schoolwork became a lot more manageable. Because at the bottom of all of my self-reliance was a huge fear: that I would fail. I would fail in relationships. I would fail at being successful.

And when I failed, I had an even bigger fear — I would be rejected.

Acting Out of the Flesh

What I didn’t realize a few years ago is that by trying to change myself to please people, I was attempting to manufacture acceptance from the people around me with my actions. The desire to do things without God is something every person attempts to do whether he or she recognizes it or not. Even Christians can operate in the flesh.

According to a By Divine Design conference I attended, living in the flesh is when we attempt to meet our own needs for love, acceptance, worth and security apart from God. This desire to be independent came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3:1-21). Our flesh wants control, but we cannot experience abundant life when we live out of our flesh rather than His Spirit (John 6:63).

I’d grown up in church and had only heard flesh defined as our sinful nature that leads us to lie, cheat, steal, lust, etc. However, I didn’t realize that flesh is a little more encompassing. Certainly, we may be tempted in those areas that I just listed, but acting out of our flesh also includes the ways we try to do life in our own strength and the coping skills we use to get what we want out of our environment — even those skills considered socially acceptable (By Design). I tried to do this with my independence and performance; however, there are other coping strategies that exist as well: criticism of others, workaholism, stoicism, escapism, perfectionism, and the list goes on.

The more I tried to cope by using my own flesh patterns, the more tied up in knots I became. It’s not wrong to have needs or express them, as I learned, or let the people in our lives help us feel loved and cherished; however, it’s a problem when we lean the entire weight of our identity on others’ reactions and our own achievements. God never intended us to generate our own devices to get through our circumstances. Consider what God says about how we are to approach life in Proverbs 3:5,6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

The New Living Translation actually says that this means “do not depend on your own understanding.” Therefore, the Bible teaches a dependence on God — not on our own flesh. In practical terms, this means seeking out the advice and will of God in our choices, relationships, and actions. In fact, The NIV Application Commentary suggests that not leaning on our own understanding goes beyond just asking for help in daily decisions; depending on God means “not being wise in [our] own eyes” (Prov. 3:7).

We shouldn’t necessarily feel guilty if we go somewhere for lunch before consulting Him; however, this does mean that our attitude is one of acknowledging God’s wisdom as surpassing our own. Trying to bull-doze through life on our own strength is being wise in our own eyes. Being dependent doesn’t mean we don’t have a personality or a brain. Being dependent means giving up our self-made strategies and learning God’s better ones. Being dependent means trusting so that we don’t have to fall for the lie that “it’s all up to me.”

Because the other part of Proverbs 3:5-8 is this: When we choose to depend on God’s ways over our own, He “makes [our] paths straight.” The Hebrew word for “straight” indicates “travel made safe by clearing and leveling the road” (The NIV Application Commentary). That means when we choose to lean on God instead of ourselves, He literally clears the way. It doesn’t mean we won’t be met with obstacles, because we will, but we will be traveling a way leveled in advance for us by the Almighty God.

We can rest because He’s got our back. And I don’t know about you, but that way sounds a whole lot better than trying to “do it myself”!

*Revised from a post originally published February 5, 2015.

Editor’s Note:

Please note that in the articles “Set Apart for God’s Special Purpose” and “Having the Faith to Get Through Your Storm,” changes were made to account for sources that were not included in original draft and/or bring clarification to key concepts. While we make every effort to correctly identify sources in original, at times corrections do have to be made after publication. We apologize for not including those in original draft. Please check out our new publication policy on our About page.

Related Resources:

Want to listen to co-hosts Carol Whitaker and Suzy Lolley talk through and explain the points in our latest posts? Check out the brand new Beulah Girl podcast on Soundcloud. Subscribe on Soundcloud and receive all of our latest episodes!

Carol Whitaker

Overcoming Anxiety With One Simple Question

January 1, 2016 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

At the beginning of the summer, we put our house on the market.

To get the house ready, we painted, scraped, re-grouted, and deep-cleaned. I was a little tense and snappy with my family during those weeks as I struggled to work on the house and care for my small children at the same time. I felt a little stressed at a few intervals; however, we finished the work to the best of our ability and got the house listed.

After that, I felt some of that tension go away. Of course, the pressure didn’t completely subside. My perfectionistic tendencies were tough to keep at bay as I worked to keep the house looking picture-perfect for the stream of would-be buyers coming through.

About two months into our house listing, we got the promise of an offer. Not only did we get news of one offer coming in, we found out shortly after that that we had a second more generous offer coming in. We were ecstatic. However, our feelings of elation soon tanked after the potential buyers retracted their offer after the inspection and our other interested buyer decided that he no longer wanted the house.

In the week following the broken contract, I started having difficulty sleeping at night. My heart was racing uncontrollably during the day, and I was struggling to control my runaway thoughts. Recognizing the symptoms that had plagued me at other key points of my life, I knew I was suffering from an anxiety attack.

I tried prayer. Quiet time meditating on Scripture. Calming thoughts. But the anxiety just seemed to worsen.

A History of Anxiety

Because I’ve experienced anxiety at other intervals of my life, I know anxiety tends to hit when I am faced with one of the following scenarios: I’m in a season of new when I am faced with a lot of change; I am given a task that I don’t feel adequate to meet; or I sense that someone else doesn’t like me and I perceive (rightly or wrongly) purposeful rejection.

What I learned a long time ago about my anxiety is that it is caused by fear. I generally get anxious when I feel ill-prepared, inadequate or unworthy. These feelings tap into my biggest fears as a person. Therefore, getting a handle on my anxiety in the past has meant being able to identify the underlying fear I am experiencing and asking Jesus to help me with that fear.

For instance, the first anxiety episode I can recall occurred in my college days. My anxiety affected not only my emotional well-being but my physical well-being. I was rail thin. I had digestive problems that had never been diagnosed, but I believe would have been diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome. I felt jumpy and nervous all the time — and, if you have ever had IBS, you know that it makes your stomach emit weird grumbling sounds at extremely inopportune times. I found this problem could be helped with exercise, but it still made it very awkward for me to sit in quiet lecture halls and classrooms.

In one pivotal spiritual moment one day at church, God told me why I was having the problems with anxiety that I was: I had a fear of failure. When I got this revelation, I knew at the core of me that I was really afraid that I wouldn’t pass my college courses. I didn’t think I was smart enough. I had a high grade point average, but that wasn’t enough to convince me that I wasn’t going to miserably fail at some point.

And I realized something else: I could trust Jesus with my college courses. I could stop worrying about failure and just do my best. And for whatever reason just knowing what fear I was dealing with and the cause of my anxiety in that scenario helped it go away. Once I addressed the anxiety, the digestive problems went away as well.

Anxiety cropped up in small ways again when I moved on into a career in teaching, but I could usually identify the fear behind my emotions and get calm again. And when I later left teaching and had a major episode of anxiety that included a panic attack on a stage — the answer explaining that became fairly clear right after the fact.

However, this particular time, in the case of my house sale, I didn’t know why I was anxious. I didn’t know why I couldn’t sleep and why it felt like I was running a marathon each day even though I wasn’t even jogging.

The Solution to My Problem

And, just like I have so many times before, because I didn’t know how to make the anxiety stop in this case, I took my question to Jesus, and I asked Him: “God, what am I afraid of?” (Oh, and by the way, Lord, can you make my anxiety stop?)

I didn’t get an answer after that prayer session or even the day after. In fact, a few days went by and then I did receive an answer in a way that I wasn’t really expecting.

My mom had been in frequent communication with me about the house since we had put it on the market. When we lost our buyers, and I told her I was having a tough time, she sent me a text a few days later with a Bible verse she had received from the Lord for me:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. (Habbakuk 2:3 –KJV)

After she sent me the verse, I had to meditate on those words. I even went so far as to read some commentary on the verse to help me shed light on its meaning for my circumstance. And it wasn’t until a few days later that what had been an extremely fuzzy situation began to clarify, and I realized something: I did have an underlying fear, and here’s what it was: I was afraid that what God had told me about moving wasn’t going to come true.

And if it didn’t come true, that was very bad for me because I had announced to everyone that this move was God-orchestrated. I had written an entire blog post about how God had directed this move as a deliverance for me out of my situation.

You see, if you look at the Habbakuk verse in context, the verse is written by the prophet Habbakuk for the nation of Israel to trust that God would bring down the powerful Chaldeans and not allow them to destroy Israel. He instructed them not to give up just because it hadn’t happened yet and to wait for God’s appointed time (Matthew Henry Commentary). And not only that, the words indicate a waiting not only for deliverance but God’s counsel, God’s direction.

I was feeling a little like the nation of Israel. I had been given a word of what was to come, but the circumstances with my house not selling speedily were making me doubt that it was going to happen.

Over and over, the phrase from the Habakkuk verse “though it tarry, wait for it” just became one that I began repeating over and over because the truth was, I hadn’t heard a single thing from God since the botched offers. I was worrying that maybe I had missed something. Maybe there was something I hadn’t done right. Worry just consumed me.

This simple phrase from Scripture helped me to stop and reassure myself that God had told us to move. He would have to worry about our house selling and every other detail. And for that moment — I wasn’t to worry or to fear — only wait.

Getting Rid of Anxiety With One Question

Everyone is different. Not everyone suffers anxiety for the same reasons as me. I get that. It may seem a little silly to have a “formula” of sorts for beating anxiety. But I believe that anxiety will be a problem for certain people like me again and again. We may get through one bout but another will come. And, although every time is unique, this situation with my house reminded me of what I had done at other key points when I was experiencing anxiety — the solution I had turned to again this time.

The moment I feel anxiety coming on, I need to do the following: Ask one question of one Person.

The question I need to ask is “What am I afraid of?” and the Person I need to ask it of is Jesus. You see, I couldn’t detect the reason for my anxiety in this most current instance just by asking the question alone. I am not saying that we can’t ever identify our fears or seek help from another wise person or counselor, but for me, I needed to just ask the question of the One who already knew.

I didn’t know initially because I didn’t ask God right away. I was asking the question, but I didn’t ask Him the question until a few days went by. I tried to figure it out by myself.

One passage of Scripture that has taken on new meaning for me this year is the Samaritan woman at the well passage. She said of her encounter with Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (John 4:29).

I believe that not only did Jesus look into her soul and know her deeds without anyone telling him, I believe that He told her the why. That is why she got so excited. He gave Himself as her solution to her deepest soul problems.

The same is true for me and you. Christianity isn’t a dead, has-been religion with a god made by human hands. The Jesus of the Bible is as real and true today as He was for the Samaritan woman at the well. He is the only One who can look into me and see why I do the things I do.

And that why may be the key to overcoming problems in my life I don’t know how to deal with on my own.

Yes, even those making sleep leave my eyes and a tremble invade my heart.

Do you struggle with anxiety? What are some ways that you have been able to cope with fear in your life? Share in the comments below.

Carol Whitaker

Spiritual Rest: Letting Go of Trying so Hard in Our Work and Relationships

January 26, 2015 By Carol Whitaker 2 Comments

She looked at me with a serious gaze and explained, “It’s not a matter of trying harder.”

Sitting in the doctor’s office after a surgery — a doctor in front of me with my charts mapping out my low iron levels — I knew what she said to be true. Plagued with a racing heartbeat, dizziness when I stood up, and fatigue when I walked the distance of a parking lot, my body was struggling to bounce back from a pregnancy loss.

I wasn’t functioning at my optimal level because my heart was having to work overtime to circulate oxygen through my body, and the doctor predicted that it would be several months before I regained my strength. Even if I wanted to will myself to get better, I could not get to the place I had been before surgery simply by “trying harder.”

Similar to the case of my post-surgery health crisis, I have found myself many times running on empty spiritually and not really understanding why I can’t get to an optimal efficiency level. Contrary to the messages of our culture, we were never designed to live in an achievement system where we go it alone in our own strength. We were designed to live in a place of dependence on God — created to live in a state of rest in our decision-making, interactions with others, and work endeavors.

Rest in God does not equate with lying around all the time — being at rest is a choice of believing that God is who He says He is and His precepts are true. Being at rest means taking purposeful steps in the direction we feel He has called us. We always have a choice, and if we choose not to walk in faith than we will not be at rest.

When we step out and allow Him to guide our steps, we have the blessing of peace in what we are doing. We have the confidence and assurance that we are doing the will of God and that He will protect us in the way we are going because we are relying on Him and not ourselves for guidance.

So many verses in the Bible emphasize this important point:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28)

Rest in Our Work

I first encountered the term “labor-rest” in a sermon by our senior pastor, Dr. Mark Walker. As he defined it, labor-rest is the idea that even in our work we are not frantic because we are not trusting in our own resources or decision-making abilities, but rather relying on God’s wisdom and resources, allowing Him to guide and help us in the important work we do.

An example of this rest principle was when I was working on the creation of this blog. I had received some advice from a friend and had managed to set up a blog on WordPress and buy a domain. However, when I attempted to change my layout and the format of my blog, I ran into some roadblocks. I couldn’t figure out how to make my pages show up under the appropriate menu tabs. I really was quite frustrated.

A few weeks into worrying about it, I prayed and immediately the name of a friend from my Break-time For Moms group popped into my head. I emailed her and set up a meeting, and she was able to quickly correct the errors in formatting and organize my pages under the appropriate tabs. If I had only prayed to begin with, I would have saved myself needless worry.

Getting to a place where we can rest takes a little effort because we have to let go. We have to trust that we are not the best ones to handle the situation. We may get by for a time on our own abilities and efforts, but we will not have the peace or the energy we will have if we decide initially to rely on the advice and wisdom of God.

On the flip side of labor-rest is achieving in our own power, and it creates damaging circumstances. As Steve McVey notes in Grace Walk: What You’ve Always Wanted in the Christian Walk, “Self-sufficiency always produces conflict … It is God’s purpose to bring us to the place where we rest totally in the sufficiency of Christ within us for every situation.” When we strive to produce in our own strength, we get burned out and may even compromise ourselves to get ahead. When we believe that we are the source for our income and well-being and leave God out of it, we may need to cut corners to maintain our status at work or get a promotion.

Suddenly, flirting with the married boss to get a raise, covering up a costly mistake we made in order to save face, or refusing to confront the wrong actions of a powerful co-worker begin to appeal to us because we are not trusting God for our sustenance but instead looking to ourselves, the people and systems around us as our supplier.

Rest in Our Relationships

Not only can we have rest in our work, God also wants us to have rest in our relationships. As Joyce Meyer argues in Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone:

We can even enter the rest of God concerning what people think of us and whether they approve of us. We can become so secure in Christ that as long as we know our heart is right, we know whatever people think of us is between them and God and not our concern.

The key to rest in relationships is resting our identity in God and not using other people to define us and help us feel good about ourselves. If we know that we are accepted and approved by God, we don’t have to find a relationship to make us feel filled and valuable. We don’t have to constantly worry that the other person may end the relationship or lose interest because our whole identity is not tied up in that person.

If the person chooses to move on — a friend stops calling, a spouse leaves, or a family member decides to not forgive after a conflict — it may hurt and we may miss them, but because our identity is resting in who God says we are and not on who those people say we are, we do not have to crumble and lose all sense of self when the other person is no longer a part of our lives.

A few years ago, I was devastated by the loss of a friendship with a very close friend. She was one of the first friends I made when I came to Georgia — our husbands got along, and we were at a similar age and life stage. However, I clung very tightly to that relationship because of my own insecurity. When she became close friends with another couple and flaked out on a few engagements, I got really angry.

In retrospect, I see that I was depending way too much on that relationship for fulfillment. I still see her from time to time, but we are not close like we once were. I am at a point where I have been able to let that relationship go because God has helped me to find healing in that area and not cling so tightly to that friendship.

A phrase Beth Moore uses to reassure herself when she begins to have fearful thoughts that her spouse will leave or a friend will desert her is simply “Then God.” We can know that if times get really hard and we face a relationship fallout even when we’ve done everything we can to keep it together, “Then God.” We have the foundation of God to rely on to help us keep ourselves in tact through any relationship difficulty.

The reality is that even when we do all the right things at times, people will still betray us, abuse us, misunderstand us and forsake us. But we always have the comfort of knowing that God will never do these things to us.

Finding Rest in Our Identity in Christ

The interesting thing about finding rest in our work and relationships is that both involve being at rest with who we are in Christ. Once we have decided upon our identity and our ability to lean into His character and trust Him with all facets of our lives, our need to manipulate, control or act in ways that jeopardize our peace ends. As Meyer observes in Addiction to Approval:

Hebrews 4 teaches us that we can enter the rest of God through believing. It says we should be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter the rest of God. We should have knowledge of it and experience it for ourselves. Those who have entered the rest of God have ceased from the weariness and pain of human labors. They are not tied up in knots; they are relaxed, secure and free to be themselves.

I can honestly confess to you that I am not fully at that place yet of being “relaxed, secure and free” to be myself. I am still working on letting go and allowing God to do what He wants with me. I do well depending on God for awhile and then find myself getting anxious about a project or a relationship, and I spend a lot of energy trying to figure things out. Many times the way He assigns doesn’t seem very logical to me.

Meyer is not advocating that we “strive diligently” by spinning our wheels futilely chasing and attempting to earn something from God. Just like the place I was in after getting out of the hospital a few months ago — “trying harder” doesn’t produce results. Rather, what Meyer is saying is that when we believe what God says and submit to His ways of doing things, there is an ease that we experience with which we can approach our work and our dealings with others. We find rest not only when we come and sit at Jesus’ feet (Matthew 11:28); we find rest when we take Jesus’ “yoke” upon us and “learn” from Him (Matthew 11:29).

Taking His “yoke” upon us means allowing ourselves to be led by Him and doing what He wants us to do. Although we are under his yoke, He encourages us and enables us with his Spirit to go down the path He has for us. There may be some difficult steps, but He walks them with us. He shows us how to do life better than we know how to do it on our own.

As Matthew Henry comments in response to this passage, taking Christ’s yoke upon ourselves makes it possible for our soul to “dwell at ease”; for as he notes, “The way of duty [spending time with Jesus and allowing His teaching to transform us] is the way of rest.”

Related Bible Verses:

Hebrews 4:1-3 (NLT): “God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For this good news — that God has prepared this rest — has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. For only we who believe can enter his rest.”