Finding Peace in Surrendered Dreams

Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – July 24, 2018

By Shana Schutte

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Galatians 2:20

I always thought my path from singleness to blessed matrimony would be effortless and that I would marry in my twenties. But life didn’t happen that way at all. In fact, I was single until I was 46.

When my dreams didn’t pan out the way I desired, I was extremely disappointed and remaining unmarried was my deepest heartbreak. God and I had many talks about my still being single and in some of my most personal moments with Him, there were times I raised my hands to heaven with tears streaming and I surrendered to God: Lord, my life is yours. You know what’s best for me. If I can serve you best alone, then I do it willingly.

“Peter began to say to Him, ‘Behold, we have left everything and followed You’” (Mark 10:28).

But there were times I wasn’t so willing to bend my knee to God or His plan. In fact, after one particularly difficult breakup, I believed the lies that God had let me down and that He had betrayed me. In the aftermath of that heartbreak, I thought I couldn’t get past my negative feelings about God’s love for me unless He explained why my dreams didn’t pan out the way I desired.

I’ve since learned that surrendering to Him is necessary to overcome any distrust I feel and that God isn’t obligated to tell me why I remained single for so long, why I didn’t have children, or why others experienced the gifts I longed for. In surrender I’ve learned I am giving up what I don’t know to a God who loves me. I can choose to believe moment by moment that He’s sovereign over every detail of my life—and all things in my past, present, and future. In this there is peace.

In Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On, Stormie Omartian writes,

God wants us to surrender our dreams, because we can’t be led by Him if we are chasing after dreams of our own making. And He wants us to surrender all of them. That way He can tell us which of them are from Him and in line with His will, and which of them are ours and born out of our will. If they are only our dreams and visions and not His, we will experience a lifetime of unfulfillment and strife trying to make them happen.

Can you relate? If so, count yourself in good company. Trusting and surrendering to God doesn’t mean that it will always feel good giving up what we don’t understand to God. Neither does it mean always skipping and singing hallelujahs through our troubles. Instead, it may often mean that we say, “I trust you, Lord,” through tears, through shouts of despair, and possibly even through clenched teeth—because trust and surrendering to God is a choice, an act of the will not born of emotion. Do you have something you need to surrender to God today to experience His peace?

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