“God sometimes takes us into troubled waters not to drown us, but to cleanse us”  Arthur Unknown.  I love this quote because going through a treacherous season in your life does feel a lot like drowning in an actual ocean, not a kiddie pool.  I imagine you can barely catch your breath before the next wave takes you under.  You probably can’t even see the shoreline or a path to safety OR perhaps what you think the pathway to safety is, turns out to be the wrong way.  But the same water that can drown, also has cleansing properties that will clean.  Water is a solvent and dissolves and washes away dirt, much like God washes away the junk from our hearts when we surrender.  Psalms 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me”.  This cleansing leads to a right relationship with God, which leads to peace.

Last time we talked about inward surrender (surrendering the heart).  The process of surrendering my heart was not a deliberate process.  I didn’t sit down one day and say, “I am going to start surrendering my heart today”. LOL.  I had no idea at the time that the things I was being led to do would lead to a surrendered and cleaner heart.  Me trying to surrender everything to get what I wanted, unbeknownst to me, was actually God cleansing me and helping me grow in Christ.

During this season of surrender, I did many things like fast, pray, and worship.  These are all good and necessary things to do.  But one of the first things the Holy Spirit led me to do was change my focus.  This change in focus, changed my heart’s desire.  When I began my journey of surrender, I was surrendering hubby to God so God could “fix” him.  Lol.  My heart’s desire was a better marriage and there is nothing wrong with that.  But one of the loudest messages that God kept saying to me was to stop focusing on what I wanted my husband to do and focus only on me and Him (Jesus).  That message rang loud and clear every single time I had a fit.  Why was I having a fit?  Because “I” wasn’t getting what “I” wanted in the situation right then and there.  We are naturally self-centered people. The mindset in our culture is to “do what makes YOU happy” or “follow YOUR heart”.  Are you kidding me? Our hearts are so corrupt from our sin nature, we should NOT follow “our” hearts.  But I digress.  I was confused because in my mind, if my marriage was the problem, what else should I focus on? LOL.  I also know that God loves marriage, right?  And what I wanted wasn’t shallow or wrong, it was valid.  So what is so wrong with me desiring a great marriage?  Nothing at all.  But I remember God saying “maybe, just maybe this whole thing that you’re going through is not about YOU getting what YOU want out of this marriage. Um, ok?  Then what else could it possibly be about?  (You see the corruption in the heart?) Lol.  We can’t imagine a single thing in life being about anything but US.  But if “it” is happening to me, doesn’t that mean it is about “me”.  Yeah, no. 😉

Anyway, during the pandemic, my dad would send short encouraging messages to the family group text every Saturday.  One text he sent was about how God had delivered Israel from Egypt and on their journey to the promised land, they were complaining.  My dad said, “Israel didn’t realize like so many people today, that it was not so much as to the difficulty of the journey, but it was that their focus was in the wrong place”.   This message came long after God had already told me several times to stop focusing on my husband and marriage.  My dad went on to remind us how Israel took their focus off of God and focused more on their circumstances.  My dad also said we should “set our affection, our deeper desire on the things of heaven not on the things on the earth.  It hit me, AGAIN!  Israel’s heart and desires were in the wrong place and that’s why they were so miserable.  This was confirmation to me that I needed to be more deliberate about setting my sights on the things above.  My deep desire (high priority, yearning desire) was on the thought that fixing my marriage would heal my heart.  I realized that God wanted me to desire closeness with Him more than anything on earth, including my marriage.  He wanted me to want Him more than I wanted my husband.  God flat out said, “leave him to me and you focus on ME and you”.  According to scripture, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3: 1-2).

God is so smart.  I mean He did create the whole universe. 😉 He knows that when we focus on our difficulties, it leads to heaviness and junk in the heart that robs our peace.  Like Israel was consumed with the difficulty of their journey, I was consumed with “fixing” my marriage and “changing him”. But the more I focused on what I wanted hubby to do, the more resentment and bitterness grew in my heart when I didn’t see change.  I had surrendered hubby, I had practiced self-control to hold my peace, but my heart’s desire was not completely on God, therefore was not pure.  That’s why I had no peace.  But when I recognized that my desire should be closeness with God, my focus shifted and that is when inward surrender took place in my heart. No, it was not instantaneous.  God doesn’t usually work like an Instant Pot; He is more of a slow cooker.  It was and is still a work in progress for me.  We are human, so it’s hard to not focus on the things that cause us pain.  But God…..in His awesomeness and love for us, gave me a little trick through His word to help me shift my focus in my time of need. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”.  The only thing that I can think of when I read this scripture is God.  If I would get disappointed about earthly things, I would say “thank you Lord that YOU are true, noble, right, pure, and lovely.  That would help me refocus quickly.

If we desire Christ and think about Him, no matter what happens, we cannot be disappointed.

In my attempt to keep from drowning in the ocean during a storm, I began to cling to God instead of my marriage and God used that same storm to cleanse my desperate and surrendered heart.

As my focus shifted, my desire for Christ increased, so did my peace. He restored my peace and He restored my marriage without my help.

Remember, God loves you.  “We love because he first loved us”. 1 John 4:19.