A couple of weeks ago, my husband read Romans 8:31-34 at the beginning of our church service. Two phrases in particular gripped my heart: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” and the truth that Jesus intercedes for us.
My husband has no idea yet of the profound impact those words had on me—and perhaps on others that morning. For weeks, several of our family members have been going through deep struggles, and I’ve been consumed with worry and sorrow. I’ve prayed and prayed, only to grow discouraged, then prayed some more. I’ve felt like a failure as a mother, battled overwhelming sorrow, struggled with sleepless nights, sky-high blood pressure, and a crushing sense of helplessness. When our children hurt, we hurt with them. When they make poor choices, we naturally wonder where we went wrong. I suspect this is a normal part of parenting adult children.
One beautiful thing has come from this season, though: watching our adult children navigate life has given me a far clearer picture of God our Father and His love for us. I used to imagine Him with gray hair, arms crossed, shaking His head in disappointment—“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” But He is not like our earthly fathers. As Byron shared last week, He is a patient, loving God who is so in love with us that He continually pursues us and woos us back to Himself. He never stops. He never, ever gives up on us.
In the moment my husband read those words—“If God is for us, who can be against us?”—I realized I had not been living as if I truly believed them. We worry because we aren’t in control. We lose sleep because we’re afraid. We feel defeated because we’ve forgotten this powerful truth: If God is for us, who can be against us?
We’ve all been believers for many years. Our heads know countless scriptures, but sometimes it takes a while for those truths to travel from our minds to our hearts. That’s exactly what happened to me. The Holy Spirit gently asked, “Do you believe that I am for you? Do you believe I will carry this load if you’ll only give it to me? Do you believe that I love you—and that I love your children even more than you do?”
It was all I could do to hold back tears. I realized I easily believed these words for others, but I hadn’t been walking in them for myself, especially in recent weeks. To truly believe them means that even in the midst of natural human fear and worry, we can trust that Jesus is interceding for us. We can rest in the promise of His love while we wait for God to work—because He always does what is best, far better than we ever could.
I remembered something a dear friend told me years ago. After praying for me, she said I might feel like I’m hanging from a cliff by my fingertips, but God’s hand is right beneath me, ready to catch me. Over the years, I’ve often returned to that image. If that’s true, then it’s okay to let go. We can fall—but we won’t fall far, because if God is for us, who can be against us?
This reminds me of a favorite scene in Finding Nemo. Marlin and Dory are trapped inside the whale. Dory tells Marlin they need to let go and fall into the whale’s mouth, but Marlin is terrified. “How do you know nothing bad will happen?” he asks. Dory replies simply, “I don’t!” So they let go—and the whale blows them straight to where they needed to be.
It’s time to let go.
Let’s look at the broader context together, because it’s powerful:
Read Romans 8:18-39 I love it in the NLT and MSG versions!
In closing, I want to gently challenge each of us: What areas of your life are you still struggling to yield to God? We’re all living in the tension of the “already and not yet,” still walking around in these fallible bodies. For me, worry and fear have been heavy lately, along with my tendency to turn to food for comfort instead of to Jesus. I’m also learning to stop trying to fix everything myself and to maintain healthier boundaries.
Let’s purpose today to see Jesus as our true Lover—the One who fights for us, the One who is ready to catch us the moment we stop clinging so tightly to the cliff. As Dory said, “It’s time to let go now.”