“All my hopes, all I need held in your hands…all my life, all of me held in Your hands.”

The preceding line is from one of my favorite new songs. It is a song about the sovereignty of God. It serves as a reminder that God is in control of everything in His creation. It is also an invitation to surrender control to Him over what we hold on to tighter than anything else, our lives. Even though at times this can be a struggle, I’m encouraged to know that when we surrender control of our lives to the sovereign God we can be assured that we will find real life, a Zoe life.

Zoe actually means life but it is more than a generic existence. It carries with it that there is a particular quality of life or living that far surpasses a mundane existence. It carries with it the idea of an abundant and blessed life that is connected to the life of God. Zoe is life not simply to the full but overflowing – life from God.

The Dunbar family is experiencing a bit of this overflowing and generous life by ringing in the New Year with a new baby girl. We have been filled with such a great and unexplainable joy that the best way I can measure our happiness is in all the new laugh lines and salty joyous tears. Everyday we look at our blessing and come to an increasing awareness that life is precious. The happiness that we are feeling can not be contained! I find myself being evermore creative finding ways to talk about my baby girl. It usually starts with, “Guess what I got for Christmas?” Her life has brought new life to each person in our family. It’s like we have all received a shot in the arm. She has been such a tremendous boost that almost nothing can bring us down. This is an extraordinary thing that the life of one child could make such a massive difference in our little world. This thought takes me to the heart of the gospel.

Maybe an overlooked part of the Good News is that all life flows from God. Whether it came through a bang, space dust or just the artistic impulses of a supreme Creator, it seems to me that life emanates from something special so shouldn’t life be special? Shouldn’t it have a quality that is glorious and excellent? Or put another way, since “we move and have our very being” because of God, shouldn’t life be built around the One who gave it? I confess that I have lived life apart from God and there was never any quality that was redeeming or glorious. There was abundance but only in emptiness, pain, hurting myself and others. That is not Zoe life!

Previously I wrote “life is precious,” it is an occasion that should be celebrated and given the utmost care. Life well lived is Zoe life. I can’t think of a thing that is more precious than a life well lived. A life well lived is a life that is pleasing to God. When I think of a life well lived I always have to think about Jesus. He is the epitome of a life that was full, satisfying and most important, surrendered. His was a Zoe life that serves as a road map on how to fulfill our reasonable duty spelled out in Romans 12. This is the life that I want for myself, my wife, my son and my daughters.

This is a life that takes all of our hopes, all of our dreams and places them in God’s hands. In His hands there is real power to make a life that matters. In His hands is the promise to provide all we need. We will never have to wrestle and struggle to build a life of fullness and abundance when all things are surrendered to Him. With all this said there is only one question that remains, “Will we take hold of the Zoe life by recognizing God as the sovereign Lord?”