How often do you feel overwhelmed? Does this season of life make you feel overwhelmed more times than you can count, too?

Just the other day, I got to have coffee with my friend (and Live Original ambassador) Georgia Brown. My thoughts and feelings were all over the place as we talked about the season of life I’m walking through as a new mom. As soon as I was done sharing, she responded with something so powerful not just for me, but for you, too: “This was all God’s idea.”

Those five words left me speechless for a second. Go ahead and give yourself a second to let that sink in. It is powerful, isn’t it?

The longer and longer I let that sentence simmer, the more my perspective started to shift. It got me thinking: What if there is a way to pivot our perspective when we start to feel overwhelmed? What if we traded feeling overwhelmed by our circumstances for being overwhelmed by the power, goodness, and faithfulness of God?

Think about it: God isn’t surprised by the blessings He has given to you to steward in this season. He also isn’t surprised by the deep waters you’re treading through. Not a single day in your life is without a plan or a purpose.

In fact, your entire life was God’s idea. He gave you your specific gifts that are unique to you. He gave you the people around you to love on and do life with. He not only created you, but He made a way to live with you forever. God chooses you. He loves and adores you.

What if we let these truths overwhelm us instead of whatever is going on in our life? If we let our circumstances or the situation that we’re in the middle of overwhelm us, we’ll feel stuck with no way to move forward. If we choose to be overwhelmed by who God is, how He has intentionally orchestrated our life, and what He has done for us, we’ll be able to walk out this season with the power and authority He gives us as His children.

Don’t you see? So often what we see as a dead-end is where God is just getting started. We don’t have to live like we are defeated – He has already won! We are far from paralyzed where we are. We are not without next steps where we are. We are not alone where we are.

We have an invitation to walk through this season and the next one with the One who already had you in mind before He created you. He is the same God who had you in mind when He made a way for you to spend eternal life with Him through Jesus before you were even born.

This won’t be the first or last time that we are overwhelmed, but it can be the last time we sit with the same posture and perspective we had before. There is a choice for us to make: What are we going to be overwhelmed by?

Will we choose to be overwhelmed by our never-ending to-do lists or will we choose to be overwhelmed by the One whose love for us is never-ending? Will we choose to be overwhelmed by our situation that seems hopeless or will we choose to be overwhelmed by the very One who gifted us with hope? Will we choose to be overwhelmed by the mess we’re in the middle of or will we choose to be overwhelmed by the One who makes miracles happen?

We can choose to sit with a posture of one who has already lost when we feel overwhelmed or we can choose to walk with the One who has already won. Deuteronomy 31:6 MSG says, “Be strong. Take courage. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t give them a second thought because God, your God is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you.”

As Georgia says best, “This was all God’s idea.” He’s got you and He’s never going to leave you.

Here are some verses we can set our gaze on to help us pivot our perspective and become overwhelmed by God’s power, goodness, and faithfulness today:

• “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” Matthew 6:34 MSG
• “But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthly bodies into glories bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.” Philippians 3:20-21 MSG
• “Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done that whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2:7-10 MSG
• “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:26-28 MSG

Keep going, friend! Let this set the tone for how you run your race today.

Hope Reagan Harris is a wife, new mom, coffee connoisseur, author, and corporate junkie on a mission to encourage you where God has you. You can become Instagram or TikTok friends with her today @hopereaganharris.