Finding Calm in the Chaos by Jenny DonnellySample

  Day One

Rest Is a Place Inside You

Scripture: Psalm 46; Philippians 4:6–7

I used to think that if I read my Bible regularly, prayed, exercised, and was successful in business, I wouldn’t struggle with bouts of unrest, anxiety, or depression. Like most people, I thought that unrest was caused by circumstances. Yes, life can throw us serious curve balls. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of people who are anxious or depressed who do not have circumstances to match their level of unrest. On the flip side, many people with extremely intense life circumstances are able to live without the torment of anxiety or depression. 

The kind of rest we are after has nothing to do with what we are doing. The rest I’m speaking of is not a verb. It is not the act of resting. The rest that will change your life is deeper than what you are doing and completely disconnected from the condition of your life circumstances.

This rest we are in search of is a place. It is somewhere you live. Let that sink in. When you see the word rest, I want you to think of a place where you have decided to live from and remain in night and day, no matter what. This place is special. It is available to everyone and yet few know it exists. 

Rest is an inside place. It exists within you. 

I have prayed for hundreds of people over the years, and many asked for their circumstances to change. This is a wonderful prayer, and I believe that God wants us to lean on Him for everything. But I want to point out that rarely do people ask for prayer for their own hearts to change. Few of us ask for prayer for our insides. We pray for other people’s insides but not our own. I wonder what would happen if we begged God to change us with the same desperation we ask Him to change someone else? To change us from the inside out?

Spend time meditating on Psalm 46:10: “Surrender your anxiety! Be silent and stop your striving, and you will see that I am God. I am the God above all the nations, and I will be exalted throughout the whole earth” (tpt). What would it look like to “surrender” your anxiety today to God?