Freedom’s peace is in the last place we look

Just about everyone fights to achieve peace.  Ironically, we all tend to go about it the wrong way.  The tension arises in our insistence that we have it our way when life doesn’t work like that.

My favourite work is probably spending time with individuals broken by their life circumstances.  It usually corresponds with their rock bottom.  

It reminds me acutely of my own rock bottom in 2003—a rock bottom that lasted a year or more because of my life circumstances at the time.  Endurance was and is the lesson.  Having believed it would take place—I would not have made it if I didn’t have that faith—I praise God for the rescue availed to me.

That rescue is as simple as this:
“The truth shall set you free.”  

If that truth means we are trapped in freedom’s opposite—bondage—we see that the rock bottom descends farther down the more we ‘insist’ on refusing to take hold of our freedom.

L.I.S.T.E.N.

There comes a time in all our lives when our life is screaming at us to listen—to take heed of what our life would tell us if only it could speak.  

But of course, our life can and does speak to us.  How ‘fortunate’ or ‘unfortunate’ are we at present?  How is our approach to life working?  If we’re in an angry, bitter, resentful season, is that serving us and others?  And what are others in our lives saying?

There is a tragic irony at play in those whose lives are going to rack and ruin.  I know from direct lived experience.

When we most of all should listen,
we are least likely to.

Those who can listen to WHAT their lives are telling them—yes, that’s us—no matter how ugly or uncomfortable that message is—demonstrate the humility to grow.  They exhibit a growth mindset.  

Those who refuse to listen continue to lose what little they have; they create damage and contribute to disorder rather than invest in the fabric of life.

Here is an acronym to help:

Listen
Intently
Solemnly
Totally
Even
Now

Listening intently, solemnly as if it is all that matters, with the totality of our being, each moment, even now, staying in the present.  One moment at a time.  In faith, we are on the right track to that peace we seek.

Those who listen tend to succeed in life
because listening is central to humility.

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
(Matthew 23:13)

But we don’t typically take much heed of the direct path to success because we think taking control is what works.  

But this negates the fact that in life
there are so many things beyond our control.

The person who accepts what they cannot change—others, and many situations—and who changes the things they can—themselves, and their own responses—ultimately succeeds because these two are wisdom that leads to serenity.

Freedom’s peace is in the last place we look: the place of letting go when we prefer to clutch hold of our control so tightly.  The only thing we ought to clutch hold of tightly is what WE are responsible for.  Everything else WE ought to routinely learn to let go of.