When The Waters Are Stirred

“He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.” Col 1:17

I am a huge proponent of Christian counseling. I have recommended it to many individuals, couples, and families, but the main reason I am a fan is because during tough times it always delivered. During times where everything seemed to be falling apart it was the experience that gave me hope. Those visits were times of exhale in a season where I could barely breathe. It was the unpacking of burdens that I didn’t even remembering packing. My counselor usually made me feel like I was successful for choosing to ‘visit’, instead of judging me for my failures. With any good counselor, you should feel neither judged nor pacified…you should just feel heard. When our allotted time would expire, I would thank her and return to my car. The funny thing was that nothing about my circumstances had changed, but my prospective had shifted, my emotions had settled, and my belief in future resolution had once again been restored. Hope really does float when the waters are stirred.

The beautiful thing about Jesus is that He holds everything together for us. He doesn’t expect us to hold it all together, or to be everything for everyone. He fully understands us much better than we understand ourselves. He already knows what is packed in our hearts, and what burdens need to be released for Him to hold. His Spirit is the ultimate exhale for the world in which we exist. He is always ready to listen, no matter how difficult it is for us to express. He listens through the ears of love, instead of the ears of condemnation. He is the ‘holder-together’ of our entire existence so why don’t we allow Him to do just that? ‘It’s the main ingredient of the Fall (Genesis 3) as well as its primary effect – our need to control, our desire to create our own truth, to find our own way, to manipulate our circumstances to match our desires. Somewhere in the Garden, the serpent must have whispered slowly and deliberately into Eve’s ear, ‘It’s all up to you, my dear.’ And we pass the lie down from one generation to another.’ She Reads Truth, p. 108.

Sometimes we are our worst enemy, and the most critical of ourselves. When we spend time holding on to the One who holds us we will live above our circumstances. We will not only accept but we will embrace that we were meant to be weak to activate His strength. We were meant to lack to receive His awesome provision. We were meant to end where His power picks up. He has always been and always will be – let’s let Him!

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Phil 3:12.