Here’s
how. Counterintuitive I know; go against your
better judgement and read on. It’s this: realise that
your life is not your own.
This is where
Christians ought to have the advantage, but 99 percent of us do not apply the
gospel message of following Jesus and therefore miss out on the “abundant life”
freely available to us.
For a Christian,
their life is “in Christ.” Their life is no longer their
own. Sounds cultish. But as soon as we let go
of all we insist on having our own way, peace comes rushing right in
like a king tide.
The testimony of life itself
is that our lives are not our own.
So many things occur
against our will and control. The ultimate truth is my life is not
my own in death—it has the final say against our wishes most of the time. So often death is a crushing reality. But we face a million ‘deaths’ while we’re
alive.
Why would we continue
to insist we can control what we can’t? Instead, power for peace,
and not just peace, but hope and joy, comes rushing into our lives when we have
let go of ALL our futile demands.
THE TYRANY OF DEMAND
We are fooled into
thinking—indeed, self-deceived—when we imagine we can demand anything of life,
persons, and situations.
We can present our
wishes but the moment these blur into demands is the moment we’ve lost our
wisdom and have entered the folly of futility.
Demands make people
tyrants. And the irony of this tyranny is the self-absorbed concept
that “I’m entitled” to demand but others are not. Think of a
demanding person in your life; do they allow others to be demanding to
them? No, they don’t. They are miserable and they are
miserable to live with.
THE CHALLENGE OF
ULTIMATE PEACE
There is a consistent
way to peace that works—every time.
When we go the
audacious way of accepting our lives are not our own—besides the freedom of
choice to do the good things we can—we actually come close to perceiving the
potential about ourselves we can unlock and mobilise.
Like becoming free of
the self-concept that “I’m a fake,” “my dreams are dashed,” “I’ll never be good
enough,” “I can never forgive myself,” “I’ll never live up to their
expectations,” etc. And myriad other judgements for our own and others expectations that cannot be met. Only when those narratives lose their power will
we walk free into the narrative of what-can-possibly-be.
We stand in our own
way far too often when we insist on taking control of situations and people,
vouching for and advocating for ourselves.
ACCEPTING &
CREATING DESTINY
Some of our destiny
is in our own hands, a lot of it actually. The biggest determinant
of our destiny is our attitude toward those things that occur that we cannot
change.
This is a jarring irony.
By getting out of our own way,
we create pathways for not only peace
but for a gracious destiny to unfold.
What loss is it that
we don’t receive what we otherwise would love? If it wasn’t meant to
be ours, why is the rest of our life derailed?
There are so many of these things, so why would we subject ourselves to
obvious levels of disappointment and despair?
Being at peace with our world and in our life is up to us.
The journey unfolds
when we accept that our lives aren’t fully ours—part of us belongs to others, part
of us belongs to the unknowable and sometimes shocking aspects of an ever-unfolding life, and for
Christians, there is a beautiful but bittersweet paradox that our freedom comes from surrender.
Giving up what we cannot control
wins for us peace and freedom.
There is no better way to the life abundant.
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