The Lord has been teaching me lately about His peace. For years I have prayed for our home to be a place of peace. I want a friend or stranger to enter our home and know that the Lord is here. I want my home to ooze with peace. In reality, this has been one of the biggest battles we have faced in our home, and in my own spirit, emotions and actions. When 6 different people with 6 different perspectives, and 6 different expressions of emotions and expectations live under one roof, chaos can easily gain a foothold. In addition to that challenge, I had 4 children in just under 7 years and didn’t realize that I was experiencing post-partum anxiety causing anger.
Two years ago at Released Retreat the Lord worked in my heart so specifically. I cried out for change in my home. My anger had transferred to my children’s responses to life. Many days were the absolute opposite of peace. With that trend of anger also came fear. I came to the Lord asking specifically to help my son, who seemed to always respond in rage fueled anger. His answer to me was very clear- to change the atmosphere of my home, I had to let go of my anger. I had to receive more of Holy Spirit into my life and days so that I could respond in His love, joy peace, patience, kindness… (see Galatians 5:22-23).
He also spoke to my heart about letting go of what I held too tightly- my children. I was called to surrender each of them completely to Him. You see, so much of my stress and anger had come from my perceived need to control our activities, our choices, our schedule, our health. I was worn out from all the striving to control. In his gentleness, the Lord taught me the difference between submission and surrender. Submission is an act of will. Surrender is an act of the heart. I had to surrender my children to Him completely, with my whole heart, trusting that He would care for them. Isaiah 54:13 says, “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.” He gave me this verse as a Truth I can count on. I can surrender my children to the Lord completely, because He is trustworthy and He loves them more than I ever could.
As my journey continues, the Lord has ministered to my heart with joy and hope, replacing anger and the need to control. However, we still have 6 people with 6 different perspectives and 6 sets of emotions and expectations in our home, and chaos still tries to creep in and take over. My son still struggles with anger, and although it is on a much more controlled scale, it can still cause major upheaval in our home. So the Lord has been teaching me about peace.
I have learned that when you take the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, back to its original hieroglyphs, the characters literally mean “breaking authority of established chaos”. Letting that sink in gave me a different perspective. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The Passion Translation describes these dark rulers as “authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms”. Their only job is to create chaos and confusion by planting lies all around us. However, when the shalom of Christ comes, that authority is broken, and chaos falls to its knees.
Recently, through a prophetic word from a dear friend, an anointing of worship was called out upon my son. She told me that the enemy wants to bring chaos in our home through him to quiet his anointing. The answer to this chaos is worship. Every time we have turned on worship music or a worship service, the chaos has died, and peace has reigned.
This has become our biggest weapon: WORSHIP. We have decided to create a culture of worship in our home on a regular basis. If we worship a certain way at church, we want to do that in our home as well. We sing, and dance, jump and bow. When we surrender our hearts to the Lord in worship, chaos loses its foothold. True worshipers worshiping in spirit and in truth become focused on who God is, and peace reigns. The authority of chaos is broken and shalom comes in. Praise Jesus that the atmosphere of our home is changing- becoming a place of true peace!
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