Every Heartbeat

God is either in control or He’s not.
If His Word is true, and I believe it is, then it tells me He is control.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

I Doubt

I originally wrote this blog in 2016 while struggling with a health issue with my heart. I’ve always had some health issues but when it involved my heart it became a little more intimidating. I don’t know what it is but even hearing a heartbeat makes me somewhat nervous. Each beat is a tiny miracle. This small object has to beat many times every minute of every day for you to stay alive. So when something physical began affecting my heart I began to worry. One small problem could potentially be very bad.

I say all that to maybe help you, doubt happens. The question that I began to ponder during this time was this, “do I believe God has my heart in His hands?”

Resting Involves Fighting

One of the beautiful things about grace is that it allows you to cease from the struggle to justify or sanctify yourself. You can’t do it anyways. It’s entirely a work of grace. We hear about the rest grace brings about. Check out Hebrews 4:9-11.

9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Sometimes though it seems like a struggle to rest, like a fight to rest. These words seem to contradict themselves, fight to rest. I want to highlight what the author of Hebrews says in verse 11 “let us therefore strive to rest…” We must strive to rest. We must fight for the rest.

This fight is a battle of belief. It is a battle that wages everyday of your existence. It’s a battle of our faith, of our affections, and of our ultimate satisfaction. It also involves our belief that God is in control. Do I believe He’s sovereign over my situation? If I don’t I will fight to try to control my situations. I will struggle to be sovereign over my life and struggles. I will easily get worn out. I need rest. I need to strive to rest in the sovereignty of God. He is in control.

How long should I strive for rest? You may be looking for the easy answer. Thinking, if I pray for a couple days then the burdens of life will lift. The reality is to some degree or another we will strive to rest for the remainder of our earthly existence. This is the best striving there is. It is continually bowing to the grace of God, declaring our need for His grace and mercy. It is faith in His finished work of the Cross. It is a declaring to yourself and your problems that God is in control.

The reward is eternal. It is the greater portion. In comparison in makes our struggles seem small. To me this makes it so worth the striving. So today, preach it to your struggling heart, God is in control of every heartbeat, even if your struggle isn’t a physically ailing heart.