Peace I Leave With You
How to Find Peace, Cling to Comfort, & Assert Your Agency When Life Feels Out of Control + A Free Coaching Exercise
Grief. It’s such a sobering feeling. One moment you can feel high off life, intoxicated by its daily delights, particular privileges, and simple pleasures. Then tragedy strikes, sobering your high, humbling you, and reminding you that everything, including life, is so short-lived.
As if the current headlines in the media aren’t cautionary enough, I was reminded of this truth this past Sunday. I was fixing the kids' lunches when I received a text notification from one of my childhood friends informing me that my high school classmate had been murdered by his girlfriend.
My initial feeling was one of complete shock and disbelief. I immediately texted her back, “Are you serious?! How do you know?” I just knew that it couldn’t be true. At the time, they hadn’t released his name in the news report, so I held onto a glimmer of hope, praying to God that it wasn’t true… but it was. Over the past several days, Facebook posts have been trickling into my feed with our classmates and mutual friends sharing their grief, memories, and utter devastation.
I think devastation best captures how I feel right now. Between hearing about the heinous acts and harrowing stories occurring right now with the Israel-Hamas war and processing the death of my classmate, I can’t help but feel heavy, helpless, and, weighed down by the blanket of grief that envelops me. As I wrestled with these feelings last night, I cried out to God, “It’s not fair!” Nothing is in this life. The reality is that we live in a fallen world — a fallen world where death and devastation exist, and I was experiencing the grief of this reality.
Maybe you’re experiencing grief in a different or similar capacity – the grief of loss, the grief of war, the grief of deferred dreams, the grief of financial hardship, the grief of sacrifice, the grief of responsibility. It is a lot and it can be all-encompassing.
When grief incapacitates our minds, how can we experience comfort when so many aspects of our lives feel out of control?
As my mind started to spiral with thoughts of anxiety, worry, and despair, I found myself pondering this question when the Holy Spirit intervened and reminded me, “Peace I leave with you.”
“Peace I leave with you. The peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or be fearful.” | John 14:27
These are the words, the departing gift, that Jesus left the disciples with, knowing the troubles they would face in this world.1 As a man who was quite acquainted with grief and sorrow2, Christ knew how to access peace, and through His suffering and sacrifice, He has also given us access. Although we can draw comfort and courage from those words, the haunting reality is that there’s still so much we can’t control in this fallen world. So what does it look like to access His peace while coping with what you can’t control?
By focusing on controlling what you can.
The truth is we have less control than we think. Craving control, we create an illusion of it by engaging in behaviors, practices, and even superstitions that provide us with a false sense of control and security. While we have limited power to influence the world around us and manipulate and control external circumstances and events, we do have the ability to lessen our anxiety and despair by changing our internal thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors.
In psychology, this ability is called our internal locus of control or what Sharon Hodde Miller describes as agency in her book, The Cost of Control.3 Sharon defines agency as “the power to influence ourselves and our circumstances.” It’s less about control and more about operating within the limits and boundaries of creation by partnering with God and submitting to His sovereignty and authority. If you find yourself spiraling out of control, ask yourself “What are things that I have agency over right now?”
For me, that’s my mind.
I’ve been very intentional about what I am consuming and monitoring right now. That means staying off Facebook, limiting my social media scrolling, and kindly leaving the room or popping in my headphones when I’m around anyone listening to the news.
God has also reminded me that I can leverage my agency through prayer. Although I can’t stop everything happening in this world, I can physically cry out and petition in prayer regarding the devastation I hear and see. Prayer is a comforting weapon.
Lastly, God has given me agency over my calling. The more I live, the more I realize that life is truly a vapor. While tomorrow isn't promised, we have been gifted the present, and I want to make sure that I am making the most of it. For me, that looks like glorifying God by loving His people, using my gifts, and managing what He’s placed within my stewardship.
When we understand the difference between control and agency, we can cope with our grief and reframe the circumstances that feel out of our control.
In doing so, we exchange the weight of our worry, grief, and burdens for the love, peace, power, and rest that are available to us through Jesus Christ.4
If you're walking through feelings of anxiety, worry, grief, or overwhelm, I developed a free exercise to help you assert your agency by identifying what is in your locus of control while surrendering what is not. Download the Asserting Agency Exercise below.
For Further Encouragement
Beautiful and timely words by the amazing
.See John 16:33
See Isaiah 53
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See Matthew 11:28; 2 Timothy 1:7
I was/ am having a rough day and that both really inspired and confirmed what God has been speaking to me. I listened to the song and did the exercise. Thank you.