Habits of Hope: Cultivating a Deeper Life with God

45.How to Let Go of Control and Let Peace Rule Your Heart

• Ginger Harrington • Season 1 • Episode 45

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Struggling with stress or feeling the pressure to hold it all together? In this powerful episode, discover how surrendering control invites God’s peace to lead your heart—especially when life feels uncertain. Based on Colossians 3:15, you’ll learn a simple spiritual habit that helps you stop striving and start trusting.

💛 Ready to stop forcing peace and start living it?
Listen in—and let the peace of Christ rule.


  • 00:00 – Letting Go: The Unexpected Path to Peace
  • 02:45 – Colossians 3:15: Let Peace Rule Your Heart
  • 06:24 – The Habit of Peace: Letting Christ Lead
  • 08:03 – When Fear Speaks Loud: A Story of Surrender
  • 09:57 – A Prayer to Release Control and Receive Peace

📖 Read the article version + access the full Habits of Peace series:
👉 Visit the website


“Peace can’t rule if control won’t budge.” – Ginger Harrington

“You don’t create peace—you cooperate with it.” – Ginger Harrington

“Letting peace lead is a spiritual strategy, not an emotional luxury.” – Ginger Harrington

“Peace doesn’t mean you’re certain—it means you’re surrendered.” – Ginger Harrington

🙏 Why You’ll Love This Episode:

This episode is a steadying reminder that you don’t have to figure everything out before you can feel peace. Through biblical teaching, gentle encouragement, and a real-life story of anxiety on vacation, Ginger reminds us that peace isn’t about pretending everything’s fine—it’s about trusting the One who holds everything together.





Habits of Hope Podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice—spiritual, medical, legal, or otherwise.

Ginger Harrington (00:01.006)
I don't know about you, but sometimes the tighter I hold on, the more unsettled or stressed I feel. Think about it. Do you ever have those moments when you're planning and managing and trying to make everything work and yet you still feel tense like your stomach's in knots? What if peace doesn't come from trying harder, but from letting go? In today's episode, we're exploring what it really means to let the peace of Christ.

rule in your heart and how that one little word, let, might just change everything. Don't just ask for peace as a feeling. Ask for it to be a leader as your umpire and then wait. Let the peace of Christ rule. Let it make the call. Today's habit of peace is more than a calming technique. It's a deliberate act of faith. This simple yet powerful posture

opens the door for peace to guide us with clarity. Here's the thing, letting peace rule is a spiritual strategy, not an emotional luxury. Welcome to the Habits of Hope podcast, where we believe that a life rooted in hope grows through daily rhythms that help us trust God's faithfulness, even in life's hardest seasons. I'm Ginger Harrington, author of Holy in the Moment.

and the creator of Habits of Hope podcast. My heart is to help you grow in faith with encouragement that's honest, practical, and rooted in God's Word. You can read, listen, or download free faith resources anytime at my website, GingerHarrington.com. And I'd love to walk this journey with you. Summer shifts our pace, routines change, schedules blur, and even the good things can leave us feeling a little soul weary.

That's why this summer we're pressing pause with a special series, Habits of Peace, because stress doesn't get the final word. These short episodes are your toolkit of biblical peace practices or simple stress busters, powerful habits to steady your heart and renew your mind wherever you are. Less pressure, more peace, one habit at a time. Welcome to your summer soul reset.

Ginger Harrington (02:24.683)
because a deeper life starts now. I had a moment recently on a very special anniversary trip when I started to let fear rule. And this was supposed to be like a highlight of the year. And it was. I'll share that story in a bit. But first, let's unpack what Colossians 3:15 has to teach us about how peace really works.

One of the most powerful ways that we begin to live in God's peace is by paying close attention to what scripture actually tells us about it. In this episode, we're going to focus on a short but powerful verse in Colossians that offers a surprising key to peace, not as something that we chase after, but something that we let lead us. Let's take a closer look. Colossians 3:15 says,

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. This verse is tucked into a passage all about clothing ourselves with the character of Christ, compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and over all of it, love. These aren't just personality traits. They're soul postures that reflect a life shaped by Christ.

Right there in the middle is this beautiful invitation to let Christ's peace rule in our hearts. The word rule means to act as an umpire, to direct, decide, or call the shots. Peace isn't just a soft suggestion or a nice idea. It's a governing influence when we choose to let it lead. And here's the part that we often miss, let.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes small words are so big? It's easy to gloss right over those small but important words. And this is one of those. Letting requires surrender. And this is why it's a little challenging. It's not about conjuring up peace from our own effort, or somehow getting ourselves to calm down. It's about releasing control.

Ginger Harrington (04:41.781)
and making space for the peace of Christ to do what only he can. Here's the truth, my friend. We don't create peace. We cooperate with it. Here's some truth about letting the peace of Christ lead your heart. In this passage, peace is an active guide. It's not a passive state. And the word let, it's a verb. And it tells us that we have a role.

opening space, yielding leadership and trusting Christ to lead from within. Letting peace rule is actually an act of surrender, of letting go, of control. So oftentimes when I let go of the pressure to hold it all together, stress actually begins to lift. And that's a little piece of what it means when we stop forcing and start trusting. I've learned the lesson of letting, letting go.

letting be letting God more often than I'd like to admit. I wish that I could get this one down and never struggle with it again, but life's not like that. Right. But it is a regular rhythm. It's a regular practice. And that's why we need to build a habit of peace of remembering to let the peace of Christ be in charge. We often try to force outcomes that were meant to surrender. Have you ever noticed that?

The absence of peace is often a signal. We've been talking about that quite a bit in this series. Unrest may be a nudge from the Holy Spirit that we're relying on our own strength or trying to hold too much in our control. Letting peace rule does not mean denying reality. It means inviting Christ into it. Did you get that, friends?

my goodness, I just have to remind myself of this. We need to purposely and intentionally practice this as a habit of peace in our lives because the more we practice it, the more it's going to come to mind when we need it. We don't dismiss concerns or minimize threats. We acknowledge them, but choose to remember that God is sovereign, present, and faithful no matter what we face.

Ginger Harrington (07:04.471)
Peace can't rule if we won't budge. So today's habit of hope, a simple habit to let peace lead you every day. Here it is, let the peace of Christ call the shots, especially when fear tries to take over. This is simple, but it shifts everything and it really can calm your heart. When you're torn between options, when you're overwhelmed or afraid, just like we talked about last week, stop, breathe and pray.

It works for more than just when we get angry. It's also a important way to get that break in our brain to move from anxiousness to peace. Don't just ask for pieces of feeling, ask for it to lead, to be your umpire and then wait, let his peace rule, let it make the call. Today's habit of peace is more than a calming technique. It's a deliberate act of faith. This simple.

but powerful posture opens the door for peace to guide us with clarity. Letting peace lead is a spiritual strategy, not an emotional luxury.

When fear takes over, I don't know if you've struggled with that, but I have. And in fact, this played out in my own heart when we were recently on a trip. It was a special anniversary trip. One morning, my husband showed me an article about a potential national security threat. Almost instantly, anxious what ifs started alarming through my mind. I found myself thinking about it at just

Weird times of the day, even when we were sightseeing and doing fun things, it was like white noise in my head. The thought, the fear, the what if kept popping up. I realized very quickly it was stealing my peace and I did not want that on this trip. Here's the thing. Letting peace rule doesn't mean pretending that everything's fine or ignoring what's hard. It means acknowledging what's real.

Ginger Harrington (09:14.783)
and then choosing to remember that God is bigger than any challenge, conflict or threat that we face. I didn't need to push the fears away or just try to forget them or deny them. I needed to bring them to Christ. So I prayed, Jesus, let your peace rule in my heart over my thoughts, my fears and my desire to control. Prayer did not erase my concerns, but it re-centered me.

It re-centered my thoughts and where I was placing my trust. I don't know about you, but I need these reminders. I'm learning not to fight the tension, but to carry it with faith. It's not either or. It's both and. I can feel concern and still choose trust. I don't have to resolve every feeling to follow where Jesus leads. You don't have to fake fine to live by faith.

Here's a truth that I want for you to remember when you want peace, but feel out of control. Letting peace lead is a spiritual strategy, not an emotional luxury. Let's close out this episode with a simple prayer to let Christ rule. Jesus, I choose to let your peace rule in my heart today. I surrender the urge to control outcomes, fix everything.

or hold it all together. Be the umpire over my thoughts and emotions, calling what is safe, wise, and aligned with your will. Where I feel anxious and unsettled, help me to recognize it as a prompt to pause, pray, and follow where your peace leads. Teach me to trust that your peace is enough, even when I don't have all the answers. I release my grip and I receive

your peace by faith. Your peace is not a feeling to chase, but it is a way to live. In Jesus' name, amen. If you've been holding your breath, managing your people, or mapping every outcome, you're probably tired. I've been there too. But peace doesn't come from holding it all together. It comes when we let go and let Christ rule in our hearts.