Overwhelmed for Overflow
Overwhelmed with emotions
Demands and Commands
Endless stimulation
Restless nights
Drowning in distress
Exhaustion settling
As the sting of strife starves the soul
Seeking stillness
for strength restored
steadiness sought in solitude
Suppressed awareness of the peace that lies within
longing to overflow
to overtake the anxiety
to overcome the lies and worry
with truth and solidity
Through surrender and slowness
stillness settles the score
that stress subtly stole
Refreshed in silence
songs of praise simmering
through the Spirit’s stride of grace
Being alive means being overwhelmed. In our culture of ceaseless stimulation that is constantly creeping into our social media feeds and clawing at our character, testing our patience and capturing our cravings, we can easily become overwhelmed by our desire to be known and successful. A fleshly floundering of pride and a selfish flaunting of power.
It’s overwhelming trying to navigate a new job, or being let go from a job you greatly enjoyed. It’s overwhelming when you receive the devastating diagnosis or have to watch a loved one suffer the side effects of the fall. It’s overwhelming to be thrust into the mystery of the unknown. Emotions are overwhelming. Circumstances are overwhelming. The dealings of darkness seem to snuff out the oxygen starved flame of fearless freedom.
Our world is suffocating from stress and the overwhelming fact that we so easily get stuck in a cycle of striving. Striving to prove our worth. Striving to make ends meat. Striving to secure social status and steadiness. Striving to save ourselves or the ones we love. It’s exhausting. We can’t sleep at night because our minds won’t cease and give into the peace and rest that God already secured in His Son, Jesus.
Being overwhelmed, as described by Merriam Webster, is to be ‘completely overcome or overpowered by thought or feeling’. Our circumstances and experiences can evoke powerful emotions that have an opportunity to overwhelm our mind with anxiety that turns to stress which ultimately leads to restlessness and a lack of wholly living into the peace that God offers that is far beyond our understanding.
Yielding to the power of our minds can be detrimental to the delivery of peace and rest when we give way to overthinking, assumptions, and worries. There will always be a circumstance, fear, or fleshly pressure that will try to overwhelm us to the point of parlays or defeat. We can never do enough or be enough to overcome the overwhelming. We need the strength and power of the one who has already overcome it all.
What if the things that can so easily overwhelm us were seen as opportunities for an overflow of grace, peace, and rest? What if being overwhelmed was an opportunity to dwell deeper in the overwhelming love and tenaciously tender care of God?
We can so easily be tempted to give up or give in when we are feeling overwhelmed. We can choose to take the easy way out and let our circumstances and emotions deafen the spirit within that whispers “keep going” or we can choose to stand in the strength of the Lord and choose rest through release. Releasing the burdens and worries that entangle us in anxiety and fear while receiving the overwhelming joy and power of God’s Spirit to overcome.
What is overwhelming you?
How can you let the overwhelming love, peace, and grace of God overflow
into your overwhelming situation or overwhelming thoughts?
Surrender to the flow of His unconditional love and step into the freedom of His presence.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.
And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13
“For everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
Who is it that overcomes the world?
Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
1 John 5:4-5
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33