This series explores the freedom of surrender. Not surrender as giving up, but surrender as learning to trust the goodness of God more deeply than our need for control. Along the way, we'll discover that surrender is not losing our lives—it is finding them safely held in the hands of the One who loves us perfectly.
Open Hands (Part Three)
The Peace Hidden Inside Surrender
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on You, because they trust in You.” — Isaiah 26:3
For much of my life, I thought peace would arrive when everything finally settled down.
When the answer came.
When the burden lifted.
When the relationship healed.
When the future became clear.
In other words, I believed peace was waiting for me somewhere ahead.
But life has a way of challenging those assumptions.
Some questions remain unanswered longer than we expected. Some burdens linger. Some seasons refuse to resolve themselves on our timetable.
And yet, peace remains possible.
The Struggle Beneath The Struggle
An elderly sage once told me, "Your biggest struggle is that you struggle."
I didn't understand it at first, but now I think I do.
Much of our exhaustion comes not from the circumstances themselves but from our resistance to them.
We fight what we cannot change. We rehearse outcomes we cannot control. We carry tomorrow before it arrives.
And all the while, peace sits patiently beneath the struggle, waiting to be discovered.
What Trust Makes Room For
Surrender does not always change the circumstances.
But it often changes our relationship to it.
The Serenity Prayer speaks of accepting what cannot be changed and finding courage for what can. That isn't passivity. It isn't resignation.
It is trusting that God is present in reality as it is, not merely in the reality we wish existed.
And that trust creates room for peace.
The Gift Waiting In Open Hands
The longer I walk with Christ, the more I am convinced that surrender is not about losing something.
It is about discovering Someone.
The Father who has been faithful all along.
The Son who has carried us further than we knew.
The Spirit who gently reminds us, again and again, that we are not alone.
Peace grows where trust takes root.
And trust grows when we finally stop trying to hold everything together ourselves.
Open hands are not empty hands; they are hands finally free to receive.
Reflection
Where am I resisting a reality I cannot change?
What am I still trying to control that belongs in God's hands?
What would it look like to trust His care in this season?
Prayer