Jesus Over Everything: 5 Days to Calm Your ChaosSample

Reorder Things Back to the Way They Will Work

Before you ever took a single breath, there was God. Blades of grass don’t exist without God. Waves will cease without God. And still today not a single thing in this world holds command over the supreme God who covers the entire universe with His presence.

The comfort of this reality is immeasurable in these troubled times. Jesus over everything—and that everything includes us—is the hope we so desperately need. He is covering us, holding us, sheltering us from being overcome by it all like a protective awning. God is with us. The Father has us. Today, let this soak in.

Sometimes in our human self-dependence, we jockey with the Lord for first place. We don’t understand what He’s doing, or we tire of waiting on His plans. We feel we could do better, and we forget that life doesn’t work well when we try to run it, and find ourselves just wanting to give our abilities a whirl. Yet Jesus, so different from humans, doesn’t ask us to put Him in first place out of ego. Instead, it is out of love, as He knows it is the only way our lives will truly work since this is the way He, as the Creator of the universe, set it up to be. He’s watched us struggle to maneuver life on our terms. His desire is for us to finally rest in His ability to manage lives that have proven too big for us.

If we want our lives to work, this is the moment to reorder them. Jesus first is not a slogan. It is a way of life, if we are interested in a true solution to the struggle and stress. Life on this side of heaven will not be perfect. But in the midst of chaos, it can be less complicated and far more settled when Jesus is in charge. This is a rich promise and a real change for a whole lot of us. We’ve tried many other things. We’ve decluttered and streamlined in the ways the experts have told us. We’ve even gotten rid of old things and tried something new. But each calendar year that’s gone by, we’ve wound up disappointed again. We don’t need new lives. We need God to run ours.

Who is in charge of your life right now? Who is running things? Do you need some reordering? It would do us good to go back to the basics and remember where it all came from and who is and forever will be in charge, whether or not we put Him over our lives. When we think about the benefit of being covered by God, it draws us to Him and reminds us of why anyone else in charge, including us, makes no real sense. It’s all His. We’re all His. From the blades of grass to the first and last breath we ever take.

He is over everything and will be until the very end. Putting Him over our lives is what will calm our chaos, even right now.

Prayer

Father, You are in all things, over all things, and You are the one and only reasons our lives hold together. Sometimes we forget that; forgive us when we do. God, I’ve tried to run my own life and put myself in first, and it hasn’t worked. I’m sorry for trying. I need You to be over my life, my struggles, all of everything right now. I can’t manage this anymore. You must be in charge of my life, and I ask You to be once again. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Respond

What place does God hold in your life right now? (Be honest. Give it an actual number.)

What is not working in your life right now that you need to put Him over? 

Along with Ephesians 1, read Colossians 1 for the five days after this reading plan is over (or alternate between chapters each day). Write down at least one sentence daily of something you take away from the passage. What is God speaking to you through it?