Silas
Beloved of All
The cry of your heart is heard. You have poured out a desperate and honest prayer, and the Lord does not turn a deaf ear to the pleas of His children. But notice the sheer volume of fear wrapped around all that you have asked. You are looking at the approaching threats, the people who could harm you, the lies that could be spread, the legal papers that could be filed. When your focus is consumed by that, it breeds a terror that will only trap you. The fear of man is a snare, and right now you feel its jaws tightening. You are asking for safety, but you are meditating on danger.
There is a different kind of fear that sets you free from that trap. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. When you fear Him as your dread, you don't have to be paralyzed by what a mere person can do. Jesus told us not to fear those who can only harm the body, but to hold a reverent awe for the God who holds your eternity. When you remember that God is for you, that He is a sanctuary, the motivations born from terror start to dissolve. Fear and faith cannot share the same space. If you allow fear to dictate your actions, your faith is pushed out. But if you cling to your confidence in God’s power, fear cannot stay.
You are praying that no weapon formed against you will prosper, and that is a promise you can stand on. Look at how God works. The ruler of the whole known world once issued a decree for a census, an unchangeable legal mandate from the highest human authority. It seemed like a terrible inconvenience to a young pregnant woman far from home. Yet that decree was just a tool in God’s hand to get Mary and Joseph exactly where they needed to be for the prophecy to be fulfilled. God is not thrown into a panic by court systems, by social workers, or by the cunning words of an ex. He uses even the edicts of earthly powers to accomplish His perfect will. You can trust Him to handle the documents and the interviews; you do not have to live in terror that a lie will stand. Lies eventually reveal themselves as lies, and their architects fall into the very pit they dug.
You are asking for the Lord to melt the hearts of your enemies, to stop their tongues. That is a good request, but you must also guard your own heart. You are fixated on what evil they might speak and what pollution it might cause. Do not lean on your own understanding of the situation. You cannot control their mouths, but you can choose not to react out of panic. Nehemiah was invited to hide in the temple when his enemies wanted to kill him. He could have said yes out of self-preservation, but he recognized it was a scheme to make him act in fear and thus discredit his faith. Do not let fear motivate you into a wrong movement. Your safety is not found in obsessing over their next strategy; your safety is found in the Lord’s presence.
You speak of your daughter with deep, protective love. You are right to be concerned for the helpless and to hate the evil that would harm a child. Jesus reserves some of His strongest words for anyone who would despise or destroy the faith of a little one. He stands that child right in the middle of the conversation and says, “Receive this child, and you receive Me.” Your daughter is being watched by a Shepherd who does not slumber. You ask that she feels love, both yours and His. You ask that the joy in her heart not be stolen. Trust that He is holding her, even when she is in another house, even when you cannot see what is happening. He was able to fill John the Baptist with the Holy Spirit while he was still in the womb; He can surely guard the heart and mind of your child without you needing to be physically present every second.
You have a deep desire to be the best mother you can be, and that is a godly desire. But understand this: a child learning to walk is going to stumble. You don't scream in terror when a toddler falls; you know it’s part of the process. You clap, you encourage them to get back up, and you stay close. God is teaching you to walk in faith right now. The stumbling moments where you feel you’ve failed, or the times your child struggles, are not signs that the promise has been broken. Train up a child in the way she should go. Recognize her unique personality, guide her in the path she should take, and leave the outcome to the Lord. You are not building a legal defense to prove your worthiness to a court; you are building a loving, trusting relationship with your child that mirrors the way God loves us.
Do not look for a purely legal contract with God. A contract requires your flawless performance, and it is broken the moment you make a mistake. That is not what He offers. He has chosen you for adoption. He brought you into His family. An adopted child has the same rights to the inheritance as a natural-born one. You are not standing before a cold Judge, trying to earn your child back; you are standing before your Father, who has given you every spiritual right to call on His name. The Spirit within you does not make you cry out with a slave’s terror, "I’m going to lose everything!" That Spirit makes you cry, "Abba, Father!" A child’s faith is not a complicated, anxious plea; it is a simple grip.
Finally, you ended by saying, "Jesus, take the wheel." He will. But when He takes it, you have to stop grabbing it back. You are asking for a future husband, for success in your education, and for clarity. Clarity comes when you become as a little child. A little child does not have the ambition to control the whole chessboard of life. A little child trusts. When the prophet spoke of the coming King, he declared that unto us a child is born. That child, born in humility in Bethlehem, is the one who now governs the universe. The government is upon His shoulder. Every legal hearing, every conversation you fear, and every lie whispered in secret is under His supreme authority. Let your heart rest in that. The child born of Mary ensures that no weapon formed against you shall ultimately stand, because He has already overcome the world. Stop looking at the storm, look at the Child who commands the wind.
There is a different kind of fear that sets you free from that trap. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. When you fear Him as your dread, you don't have to be paralyzed by what a mere person can do. Jesus told us not to fear those who can only harm the body, but to hold a reverent awe for the God who holds your eternity. When you remember that God is for you, that He is a sanctuary, the motivations born from terror start to dissolve. Fear and faith cannot share the same space. If you allow fear to dictate your actions, your faith is pushed out. But if you cling to your confidence in God’s power, fear cannot stay.
You are praying that no weapon formed against you will prosper, and that is a promise you can stand on. Look at how God works. The ruler of the whole known world once issued a decree for a census, an unchangeable legal mandate from the highest human authority. It seemed like a terrible inconvenience to a young pregnant woman far from home. Yet that decree was just a tool in God’s hand to get Mary and Joseph exactly where they needed to be for the prophecy to be fulfilled. God is not thrown into a panic by court systems, by social workers, or by the cunning words of an ex. He uses even the edicts of earthly powers to accomplish His perfect will. You can trust Him to handle the documents and the interviews; you do not have to live in terror that a lie will stand. Lies eventually reveal themselves as lies, and their architects fall into the very pit they dug.
You are asking for the Lord to melt the hearts of your enemies, to stop their tongues. That is a good request, but you must also guard your own heart. You are fixated on what evil they might speak and what pollution it might cause. Do not lean on your own understanding of the situation. You cannot control their mouths, but you can choose not to react out of panic. Nehemiah was invited to hide in the temple when his enemies wanted to kill him. He could have said yes out of self-preservation, but he recognized it was a scheme to make him act in fear and thus discredit his faith. Do not let fear motivate you into a wrong movement. Your safety is not found in obsessing over their next strategy; your safety is found in the Lord’s presence.
You speak of your daughter with deep, protective love. You are right to be concerned for the helpless and to hate the evil that would harm a child. Jesus reserves some of His strongest words for anyone who would despise or destroy the faith of a little one. He stands that child right in the middle of the conversation and says, “Receive this child, and you receive Me.” Your daughter is being watched by a Shepherd who does not slumber. You ask that she feels love, both yours and His. You ask that the joy in her heart not be stolen. Trust that He is holding her, even when she is in another house, even when you cannot see what is happening. He was able to fill John the Baptist with the Holy Spirit while he was still in the womb; He can surely guard the heart and mind of your child without you needing to be physically present every second.
You have a deep desire to be the best mother you can be, and that is a godly desire. But understand this: a child learning to walk is going to stumble. You don't scream in terror when a toddler falls; you know it’s part of the process. You clap, you encourage them to get back up, and you stay close. God is teaching you to walk in faith right now. The stumbling moments where you feel you’ve failed, or the times your child struggles, are not signs that the promise has been broken. Train up a child in the way she should go. Recognize her unique personality, guide her in the path she should take, and leave the outcome to the Lord. You are not building a legal defense to prove your worthiness to a court; you are building a loving, trusting relationship with your child that mirrors the way God loves us.
Do not look for a purely legal contract with God. A contract requires your flawless performance, and it is broken the moment you make a mistake. That is not what He offers. He has chosen you for adoption. He brought you into His family. An adopted child has the same rights to the inheritance as a natural-born one. You are not standing before a cold Judge, trying to earn your child back; you are standing before your Father, who has given you every spiritual right to call on His name. The Spirit within you does not make you cry out with a slave’s terror, "I’m going to lose everything!" That Spirit makes you cry, "Abba, Father!" A child’s faith is not a complicated, anxious plea; it is a simple grip.
Finally, you ended by saying, "Jesus, take the wheel." He will. But when He takes it, you have to stop grabbing it back. You are asking for a future husband, for success in your education, and for clarity. Clarity comes when you become as a little child. A little child does not have the ambition to control the whole chessboard of life. A little child trusts. When the prophet spoke of the coming King, he declared that unto us a child is born. That child, born in humility in Bethlehem, is the one who now governs the universe. The government is upon His shoulder. Every legal hearing, every conversation you fear, and every lie whispered in secret is under His supreme authority. Let your heart rest in that. The child born of Mary ensures that no weapon formed against you shall ultimately stand, because He has already overcome the world. Stop looking at the storm, look at the Child who commands the wind.
