Blog – 2-10-16 Submit Your Way to Peace
“Submit to God, and you will have peace; then things will go well for you. Listen to his instructions, and store them in your heart.” Job 22:21-22
Is it easy for you to submit to God, or do you sometimes struggle to let go of things? If you’re like most of us, my guess is it’s a struggle. To submit means to “yield or surrender oneself to the authority of another.” Sounds simple, but we all know it’s hard to do. It’s especially hard when things don’t go the way we hope or plan. When life shuts a door in our face that we were hoping would open, we have trouble yielding to that disappointment.
These words from Job give us specific, detailed instructions on how to deal with the setbacks we all go through in life – submit your way to peace. This verse very clearly tells us that when we do exactly that, when we submit to God’s authority, we will have peace. It even goes on to say that things will go well for us when we do. That’s pretty cool, we have peace AND things go well! That sounds a whole lot better to me than sitting in a big old pile of worry and stress.
The next verse is really important too, I believe, and something we often fail to do. It says, “listen.” So many times when things don’t go our way, we think to ourselves, “What am I going to do.” Most of the time we don’t have to “do” anything at all. We just need to accept the situation, submit to God’s authority, and listen for His instructions. If we rush off and try to rectify the situation ourselves, thinking we can somehow force a better result, it usually ends in dismal failure. Listening is a key word here that I don’t want us to miss.
I love how the last verse says that after we receive God’s instructions, we can keep these little nuggets close to us and “store them in our heart.” What if when things don’t go our way, our hearts could instantly remind us that God must have something even better planned for us? What if we really believed that down to our toes? Talk about peace!
The opposite of submit is to contradict, refuse or fight. Strong words that wreak of tension and stress. There’s no way to feel peace when we are contradicting and fighting with someone. Our relationship with God is no different. We can fight circumstances we don’t like and refuse to accept them all we want, but the only one who will suffer is us and peace will be something we never attain.
I had to put these verses to the test yesterday when I got some disappointing news. A door I was hoping would open in my ministry was slammed shut, and my first response was to feel defeated. I tried hard to fight those feelings off as I did my best to remember that God must have a different plan for me.
This morning a sweet sister in Christ texted me this verse and told me to read it, and the words absolutely jumped out at me. It fit my situation perfectly, and it was a perfect roadmap for me to follow to work through the situation.
And you know what, it has really worked! I’m not saying I’m happy about my situation, but I truly have a sense of acceptance I don’t normally experience when I get disappointed and doors don’t open like I hope they would. I believe with all my heart and I’m claiming the truth that God does have something better waiting for me. God has taught me once again that when we submit and yield to His almighty plan, the situation may not change a bit, but we can still have peace.
If you are in the middle of disappointment right now, I hope you take these verses to heart and find a way to submit your way to peace!
Hugs and love,
~Jill