Entering new seasons in our lives can often feel daunting or overwhelming. We may second guess ourselves, be halted by our own fears, or even make assumptions about the outcome. God tells us, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34 NIV). When God created man, He never intended for us to do life on our own. The heavy obstacles we face in our lives do not have to be borne alone because God wants to bear them for us. If we allow Him to, He is capable of setting us free from all problems, and anxieties, and ushering us into a new season. Many of us have been conditioned to think we need to have complete, utter control over our own lives, which in truth hinders us from moving forward and experiencing true freedom through Christ. Psalm 55:22 reads that Christians should, “Cast your burdens unto the Lord, (releasing the weight of it) and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.” To truly trust in God means having no fear (1 John 4:18), and knowing that God does have His hands in our lives and will manifest His will and promises on us in His own time.
There have been many periods in my life where I struggled to achieve breakthroughs, and found myself continually repeating the same mistakes and seeing the same results. I look back at the time when I couldn’t get past my mental health struggles, and my first reaction was to catastrophize it in my mind and constantly think of how this problem would affect every area of my life. It was only when I decided to set my eyes on the Lord, as opposed to my circumstance, that I was able to achieve a real breakthrough. In the midst of my fear, I learned to trust in Him. To fully trust in the Lord, I recognized over time that it requires one to act in obedience to Christ and also to exercise patience as He does His work.
Often it’s the things that we don’t immediately see or recognize that God is trying to show or do for us to move us closer to Him and His vision for us. Even more so, as Christians we need to accept the reality that our own works in this life do not hold as much importance as we’d like to think; but what matters most to God is the transforming of our minds, heart, and spirit. It is the internal work above all and not the external or aesthetics. In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” In Ecclesiastes, it says that all our work on earth is “meaningless”, not to say that they don’t mean anything or have value, but rather what is work if it is only to serve ourselves and selfish interests that don’t align with God’s plans. Moreover, what is the sense of our work if it’s driven by anxiety, fear, or a lack of awareness? Everything in this life serves a purpose, and as Christians, we should live as such. Our purpose is to serve the only creator of Life, the God of peace, understanding, and love. Learning to trust God allows us to make these big transitions where uncertainty and fear creep in, so let us step away from our old ways of dealing with challenges and into allowing God to lead us out of the old and into His newness of life.
