By Dina Aldabbagh

What if you didn’t have to build the house that is your life all by yourself? I notice that a lot of the pressure we feel — and therefore, anxiety and fear — comes from the internalized belief that we have to get it done ourselves or it won’t happen. That we have to make all the right choices, or lose the opportunity. That we have to endlessly maintain, earn, and optimize, or else one day someone will decide, “You’re just not worth all of this anymore.” That we have to be the ones to convince others to be good to us. All of this funnels down to an invented pressure that we put on ourselves. 

I think the peace of God that is spoken about in the Bible centers around this idea. That, actually, leaning on God and not on ourselves is what allows us to feel peace. We put all this pressure on ourselves to make things happen — to persuade others, to represent ourselves perfectly so that we’re chosen, to pick all the right words to perfectly convey what’s inside of us — that we end up feeling paralyzed because those things are just too much. It’s overwhelming to try to be perfect. 

However, if you believe that it’s your job alone to create the home you live in, perfection is the performance you believe you must do. You essentially shoulder the burden that is God’s by thinking that, somehow, all of this that is not even in your control is your responsibility to take care of. 

Therefore the peace of God, in my opinion, is really just giving the burden to him. We think we have to do it, but what if we don’t? Obviously, there’s a level of effort required to get the life you want. You have to reach out to people in order to make friends, but you don’t have to convince them of your worth. You have to apply to jobs, but you don’t have to create the “perfect” portfolio. You have to be open with that man or woman about how you feel, but you don’t have to put on a performance of “perfect partner.” 

Effort does not mean control. What if your job is to put forth effort, and leave the rest up to the natural order of things? Sometimes we think we want something, but we just don’t know enough to know that’s not actually what we want. Sometimes what we actually want is a specific kind of experience, and not a specific thing. We just think that thing will give us that experience, but my proposal to you is: what if there is something out there that is bigger than you and knows what will really give you the experience you want? 

Oftentimes, in pursuit of the specific kind of life experience we want, we think we have to have this perfect plan and execute it without misstep. This approach, however, does not take into consideration all of the variables required to make things happen that have nothing to do with you. Things must undergo a process to come to life, and it’s just not all in your control. 

It’s a noble pursuit to want to build a beautiful life for yourself, but I don’t think that it can be done by yourself. You will play a role, for sure, but your effort is only one piece of the puzzle. You can’t do it all by yourself. Stop trying. Let yourself be at peace. That is: let yourself give part of the process to God. 

I’m not sure there’s another answer to “why you feel so at peace” other than God, because it is indescribable. It almost just doesn’t make sense. To feel peace — to feel cared for and protected by something you can’t even see is almost arguable as delusional. Yet this peace of God does affect our lives. 

There’s a poem by Christina Rossetti: Who Has Seen The Wind?

Who has seen the wind? 
Neither I nor you: 
But when the leaves hang trembling, 
The wind is passing through. 

Who has seen the wind? 
Neither you nor I: 
But when the trees bow down their heads, 
The wind is passing by.

For me, the most intuitive lens to see this poem through is to be speaking about God. We may not see God in a definable figure, but we do see his effects. I’m telling you today that the peace of God comes from knowing that, while you cannot see him, if you pay attention, you can see how he has touched every facet of your life.

The key is this though: he can only show up where you are willing to step back. As long as you try to take control of things, you will be allowed to. If you want to do it all by yourself, you can. However, if you want to allow something larger than you to work on your behalf, then you will also see the consequences of that in your life. It’s actually a mechanically sound concept, and less theological than it sounds: if you let other people take care of you, then they actually can. But as long as you insist on doing it all by yourself, no one else can step in to offer you a hand. 

There’s a balance to find in the building of the house that is your life. I think it’s beneficial to put in less effort than you think is necessary sometimes, because you may just find out that — when it all works out anyways — you never needed to put that much effort in the first place. This is a learned experience, and takes courage at first to attempt. They say, though, that courage doesn’t come before you act, but after. Yet with every performance of trust, your courage grows. You believe bigger and bigger things can happen for you without so much effort.

When I left Madrid and moved back to the States, I left behind an incredible community and life I had spent time building in Spain. The beginning of my life in Spain was difficult, but eventually turned to feel so easy and full of everything I could want. Back in the US, I was in a new state, and facing a new beginning. At this point, I knew I had to recreate community from scratch — it was an impending task I knew was coming for some time. 

Right before my first day of grad school, I went to a coffee shop to begin situating myself and understanding what each of my classes would require of me. As I organized my tasks and read over each syllabus, I started to get stressed. Suddenly, it was very clear how much I would have to manage — and I didn’t know how I could possibly navigate doing all I needed to for grad school, networking for my career, building a completely new community, and maintaining my health all at once. There’s only so much time in the day, and I felt like I was looking at an endless void of required energy that would force me to give up on some things. 

In the coffee shop, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. I ducked out and went to my car in the parking lot and immediately burst into tears. I just felt so overwhelmed. I believed I would have to do it all by myself. At this point, I knew nobody, and while I deeply value friendship and community, I felt like it would take so much effort on my end that I just wouldn’t have due to the other responsibilities of life I needed to attend to. This sense of pressure that it was all on me to create community flooded me with emotion. Being someone who can typically handle pressure well, I couldn’t even explain in words why I was so affected — but I guess that’s why they call it “overwhelm.” 

In a sense, it felt like I would either have to give up trying to make friends or exert myself to no end in pursuit of this community. These were two things I just wanted no part of, but I couldn’t see another solution. Then I just heard something inside me say, “What if you put in less effort than you think is necessary?”

After some sobbing, that sentiment calmed me. In effect, it was saying, “Maybe it’s not all on you. Maybe you can get what you want without having to exhaust yourself. Let’s just see.” That sentence freed me. I decided in that moment that I would not put in any more effort than felt genuinely good and easy, at least for the time being.  

Well, I’ve been here for officially six months, and I can confirm that it has never been easier to make friends and build community in my entire life. All my closest friends here were made completely serendipitously. The continuation of relationship with these people has felt easy, non-forced, and aligned. It’s the type of ease I could have never planned, only allowed.

If you let it be easy, it will be. If you let the effort be mutually carried, it will be. You won’t have to give more than you have to give. You can give whatever feels good for you. 

We think we have to do all the building, but God never said that. Actually, in the Bible, God says, “You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in…I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you” (NIV 1 Chronicles 17:4-10). You can never build better than God can build. I think you might benefit from the realization that it’s not just on you to make it happen: “He is the one who will build a house for me” (NIV 1 Chronicles 17:12). Your openness and willingness are required, yes, but maybe not much more.   

Let the Lord do his work. Even if you don’t believe in God, this really still applies — it’s completely functional. If you take your hands off the job a bit, you make room for others to step in and contribute. But that’s why I think believing in God really helps. When you can believe that there is someone or something else out there that is carrying the load with you, or even for you, you feel at peace. 

The whole philosophy of the Bible, I believe, is organized around peace. There is nothing more valuable on earth than that. It overrules the pain of anxiety, fear, and despair. It gives you a clear mind, courage, and self-belief. It takes away the burden of doing it all yourself. You have this sense of, “It’ll just work out.” You can call the philosophy you believe in whatever you want, but I hope it drives you to this point of peace.  

With whatever is causing you stress today, and disrupting your peace, I wonder how it would feel for you to say to yourself, “What if you put in less effort than you think is necessary?” And that means mental effort too. What if you didn’t have to think about it so much? What if everything working out didn’t require a holistic understanding of the situation or perfectly planned action steps? 

What if, just maybe, you could just be here right now, and see how things work out. I’m not telling you to resign from effort altogether, but rather that maybe getting everything you want out of life requires less out of you than the world convinces us of. 

What if it’s not all on you? Can you give that a chance? If you take your hands off the job for some time, just as an experiment, you can always go back to work when you feel it is necessary. However, I think life may just surprise you enough that you’ll realize for a very long time now, you were exerting yourself to a point that wasn’t proportional to what you were getting back. 

I wonder if you could just try for the next week to put in less effort with things that you feel is necessary. You may just become addicted to the peace.