I was listening to hymns in traffic last week, and though I’m sure I’ve heard it hundreds of times before, this one phrase from Blessed Assurance struck me anew:
“Perfect submission, all is at rest.”
That line captured my attention, quieted my doubts, and beckoned me, once more, to the classroom.
On an otherwise ordinary day, stuck in traffic, and mind elsewhere, God broke through, declaring that the way things have been is not how they have to remain.
“Perfect submission, all is at rest.”
I was immediately mindful of the following quote by Henry Ward Beecher. I’ve loved its message for decades.
I have it written in the front of my Bible and committed it to memory long before calamity struck.
“Afflictions cannot injure when blended with submission.”
Do you see the connection?
We wrest control and marvel that we find no rest.
It’s the striving, more than the circumstances, that wears us out.
In that unexpected moment, two questions emerged:
Will I continue to wrest control from God when life’s injuries and afflictions persist?
Or will I submit to what He, in faithfulness, has allowed but promised to redeem?
The answer is clear. Submission is the key.
There is no rest to be found in wresting.
None at all.
We always have a choice, by the way.
We can contend, and resist, and get our dukes up.
Or we can submit, trusting that growth and purpose await beyond our present pain.
God is present in calamity. He knows what we bruised reeds can take and what we cannot.
So, we cede control.
We let down our hands. We unclench our fists.
We trade in our anger-encrusted armor for garments of praise, instead.
We submit. We acquiesce. We find rest.
“Perfect submission, all is at rest.”
Indeed.
May it be yours today, dearest ones.
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.”
~ 𝐇𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝟒:𝟗