God’s prescription for anxiety - Trust and Thanks.

Life has lots of moving pieces for me at the present time, deadlines and decisions with serious consequences are being made. These will change my life yet they are largely outside of my control. Being a person who does best in routines, when life is predictable, I struggle with feelings of anxiety. I know that this is quite natural. God made us with the ability to meet the perception of danger with the focus and strength that comes from the rush of adrenalin that anxiety triggers. That chemical messenger in the brain sets off a process called the "fight-or-flight' response.  But, we can become habitually anxious, seeing the whole of life as fearful, and therefore controlled by our anxious thoughts. Is this the life God desires for us?

When we leave in a constant state of anxiety, unwilling or unable to turn off the stress, our bodies start to wear, our mental health suffering sometimes with depression. Spiritually, it takes a toll, too.  Curiously, the very things that could relieve the anxious state – meditation, prayer, worship – become more difficult. We cannot seem to find a quiet heart that lets us enjoy the benefit of being in His Presence.

Most of us believe anxiety is beyond our control. We blame our fears on our genes or our training. There is some truth in that. Some people are much more prone to become anxious than others.  But, no matter our personality, we need not surrender to the fear, letting anxious thoughts keep us hostage from the life that God, the Holy Spirit, desires for us. Jesus promised a gift to those who accept His grace and love.  At the Last Supper, just before His crucifixion, when His friends would be subject to the worst kind of uncertainty, He said “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid." (John 14:27, NLT)  

Pause for a moment – right now – and if you are feeling anxious tell Him you want to receive that GIFT of peace.
Tell Him what is hanging out there that feels threatening.
Ask Him to renew your faith in His ability to calm the storm and to speak peace to YOUR situation.

Paul, when he traveled and preached the Gospel in a hostile world, found himself in danger, over and over again.  He penned the following inspired words from a Roman prison.  They are not just greeting card ‘happy talk.’ His faith gave the boot to anxiety and he lived with real peace. “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7, NLT)

"Don't worry about anything!"  God would not command us to do what is beyond our control or the impossible. He clues us in about the 'how-to' of that directive. The key is not try to suppress worry, nor is it in escape into fantasy.  We face the source of our fear and then we "Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done!"  If you are used to living with anxiety, if that has become your habit, your mind will rebel against this simple prescription. It will tell you that you're being stupid, that you're avoiding reality, that you need to 'take charge.'

Take it from a guy who wrestles with anxious thoughts - make the choices of Trust and Thanks. Jesus has an interesting description of the result of worry. In a story he told about seed the of the Gospel producing a harvest in our lives, He said that some "seed fell among thorns (weeds) that shot up and choked out the tender blades so that it produced no grain." (Mark 4:7, NLT) Then He explained His point. “The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it." (Mark 4:18-19, The Message) Isn't that interesting? We can miss out on the blessings of living in God's Kingdom, in the richness of His care for us, just by focusing on our problems instead of God's care.

Are you anxious today? Make a different choice - Trust and Thanks- and move the focus from your inabilities to God's power and promises.

The word from the Word is a guide for our days. This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength!”  (Isaiah 30:15).  Amen

________

10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)

(Matt Redman builds our faith with this song of praise)

Bless the Lord O my soul

O my soul

Worship His holy name

Sing like never before

O my soul

I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up it's a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger

Your name is great and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing

The end draws near and my time has come

Still my soul will sing Your praise unending

Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Worship Your holy name

Lord I'll worship Your holy name

Jonas Myrin | Matt Redman

© 2011 Atlas Mountain Songs (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

sixsteps Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Thankyou Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

worshiptogether.com songs (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055

3 Questions

Walking my late wife through cancer and up to her departure for Eternity changed me, heart-deep.  I have been a Christian for 6 decades, had some victories and success, known some sorrows and defeats, but watching my beloved’s life ebb away, put life into sharp focus. Philip Yancey wrote about a life-changing moment that made him ask questions about everything, too. “Breaking my neck in an auto accident … caused me to reexamine my marriage my faith, and how I planned to spend the rest of my years.  As I lay strapped to a backboard awaiting word on whether a major artery had been punctured – in which case… I had mere minutes to live – I could only think of three questions worth pondering:  Who do I love? What have I done with my life? Am I ready for whatever comes next?”  (The Question That Never Goes Away, Why?  Philip Yancey Zondervan, 2013)  

Who do I love?

Jesus told us the right answer for that question. ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39, NIV)  We know His words but do we live them? Are you living at a distance from God, fitting in worship and service when it is convenient? Are you loving others, selflessly, sacrificially? Love is a life-style, not a singular act. If love is to thrive, it must be tended carefully, made a priority among the many pressing responsibilities and options that come our way.

What have I done with my life?

Legacy is much more than accomplishment! “Jerry Scott” – the name – will not put on a bridge or a street. It won’t even be a footnote in history books. 50 years after I have departed this earth, most likely nobody will think of me except for that occasion when old photos are taken out or a family tree is traced on an ancestry site. But, I hope that there will be a lingering influence for Christ’s kingdom, the Word planted in lives, encouragement helping someone to turn from destruction to life in the Spirit. Jesus taught that our most lasting work is about building lives! 

At the Judgment some will hear these wonderful words: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”  Will it be because they have built great churches, shaped corporations of great profit, or painted great works of art?  No, those things are ephemeral. Jesus says what matters is what we do for others. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ . . . ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40, NIV) 

Don’t let “The tyranny of the urgent keep you from doing the important things!”

Am I ready for whatever comes next?

Does life just happen to you or are you living purposefully?  Too many people allow themselves to wake up every day with someone else writing the script, always reacting to life instead of knowing the will of the Lord and living with positive aims on their horizon.

Then, too, we will live wisely if we remember eternity awaits.  In the 90^th Psalm, the writer talks of the hardship of life and the fact that we get 70 or 80 years, more or less, in this world. Then he says this - "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12, NIV)  

Death need not be a grim, frightening inevitable appointment – Jesus said “I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all.” The fear of death mitigated by the promise of eternal life.  Let me remind you that church membership, baptism, or personal morality is not the key to that finding that life. Faith in Jesus is.  He said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life.”  (John 14)   Do you know Him beyond the walls of your church, in a way that goes deeper than the creed, as Savior, Lord, and Master?

3 questions –

Who do I love?

What have I done?

Am I ready?

Yancey’s revelation came in a crisis and he has been blessed with additional years to refine the answers to those questions.  I do not want to wait until I’m staring at the finish line to ask them, do you? I want to live today as if it were the last one here on earth – no loving word left unspoken, no time wasted on sin or selfishness, passionately seeking to know my Savior.

The word from the Word comes from Ecclesiastes. Solomon let himself get caught up in chasing the wrong things as life’s meaning for much of his life. He knew pleasure unimaginable. He built a great Temple. He amassed wealth.  But, in advanced years, he realized he had wasted so much time.  He cries about the futility of it all – “Meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless.” … and then he gives this counsel:   "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, NIV)

__________

Living Hope
(A reason to answer those 3 questions differently)

How great the chasm that lay between us

How high the mountain I could not climb

In desperation I turned to heaven

And spoke Your name into the night

Then through the darkness Your loving-kindness

Tore through the shadows of my soul

The work is finished the end is written

Jesus Christ my living hope

Who could imagine so great a mercy

What heart could fathom such boundless grace

The God of ages stepped down from glory

To wear my sin and bear my shame

The cross has spoken I am forgiven

The King of kings calls me His own

Beautiful Savior I’m Yours forever

Jesus Christ my living hope

Hallelujah praise the One who set me free

Hallelujah death has lost its grip on me

You have broken every chain

There’s salvation in Your name

Jesus Christ my living hope

Then came the morning that sealed the promise

Your buried body began to breathe

Out of the silence the Roaring Lion

Declared the grave has no claim on me

(REPEAT)

Jesus Yours is the victory whoa

Jesus Christ my living hope

Oh God You are my living hope

Brian Johnson | Phil Wickham

© 2017 Phil Wickham Music (Fair Trade Music Publishing [c/o Essential Music Publishing LLC])

Simply Global Songs (Fair Trade Music Publishing [c/o Essential Music Publishing LLC])

Sing My Songs (Fair Trade Music Publishing [c/o Essential Music Publishing LLC])

CCLI License # 810055

When a donkey was more perceptive than a prophet

 

One of the strangest stories in the Bible is found in the middle of the book of Numbers. A fearful king, Balak, tries to hire, Balaam, a prophet to come and curse the Israelites who are camped at the borders of his kingdom.  Balaam tells the king he can only speak what God moves him to say, but agrees to go, hoping for a rich reward for his ‘spiritual services!’  As he is traveling, the Lord stands in the road, but the man is oblivious to His presence. His donkey, however, sees the angel and three times tries to avoid Him.  When Balaam beats the poor animal, God opens her mouth and she tells him that the Lord is standing in the way!  (I told you it is a strange story.)

God allows Balaam to go to meet Balak but warns him not to ‘sell out’ when he speaks.  And, in the end, he ends up receiving inspired messages that bless Israel; not once, but three times, which enrages the king who hired him in the first place. Holding a high view of Scripture, we should not dismiss the story as nothing more than a legendary tale. The Spirit chose to tell us the story which takes up three chapters of Numbers and we do well to take the lessons that are included.

First among those lessons is one that Peter made in his letter. The apostle warns about using the Spirit’s gifts for personal profit. He tells us we must not “wander off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.  But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.”  (2 Peter 2:15)  When God’s Spirit moves in us, when prayers are answered, when others are encouraged by teaching or example, some will seek us out hoping to ‘buy’ the power of God. “I’ll you to bless me!” And it is short road to ruin when the matters of the Spirit are turned into things of commerce.

There is also a lesson about submission to the leading of the Lord. Balaam nearly lost his life for rushing off to make a buck before spending time to know what God wanted him to do. Once in Balak’s kingdom, a kind of farce develops. The first time Balaam stands looking over the Israelite encampment, the king waits to hear him bring a curse on the people and instead hears a prophecy of a powerful future for Israel. Dismayed, he asks the prophet to go to another place for a better view of the ‘threat.’  There, too, Balaam is moved by the Spirit to bless God’s people. The king won’t give up and sends his hired prophet to yet another place, where again the Lord moves the prophet to speak of God’s favor for His people.

When the Lord reveals His will to us, will we quickly agree, and in that ‘yes’ become aligned to His purpose?
Or, will we press again and again, like a whiny child who wants his own way?  Will we continue to beg God to let us have what we want?

We nod in agreement when reminded that “He is God and we are not.” Yet, from my own experience, I am fully aware that just knowing that does not guarantee obedience. When we are convinced that we know better than God, we will resist, even if passively, God’s plan. The secret to humble surrender is full trust in the good and loving heart of our Father. It is a tragic thing to just ‘give up’ because God is too big to resist or because we fear His power. That kind of obedience robs us of the richness we can find on the journey. Let’s come expectantly to Him, living in the faith filled assurance that He plans for our ultimate best, and then we will  ‘keep step with the Spirit.’

Read Numbers 22-24. The story will make you wonder, laugh, and think! Will it be strange to our 21^st century minds? Yes, it will. But, in those lines God teaches us that He is God, that His will prevails, and that He is merciful enough to let a donkey warn a prophet before he is killed.

Our word from the Word invites us to know His voice.  Jesus says, "I am the one who corrects and disciplines everyone I love. Be diligent and turn from your indifference. “Look! Here I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends. I will invite everyone who is victorious to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne. Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 3:19-22, NLT)

______

Good, Good Father

(Casting Crowns sings a great song about God’s love)

I've heard a thousand stories

Of what they think You’re like

But I've heard the tender whisper

Of love in the dead of night

You tell me that You’re pleased

And that I'm never alone

You're a Good Good Father

It's who You are

It's who You are

It's who You are

And I'm loved by You

It's who I am

It's who I am

It's who I am

I've seen many searching for answers

Far and wide

But I know we're all searching for answers

Only You provide

Because You know just what we need

Before we say a word

You are perfect in all of Your ways

You are perfect in all of Your ways

You are perfect in all of Your ways to us

Love so undeniable I can hardly speak

Peace so unexplainable I can hardly think

As You call me deeper still

As You call me deeper still

As You call me deeper still

Into love love love

Anthony Brown | Pat Barrett

© 2014 Capitol CMG Paragon (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Common Hymnal Publishing (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Housefires Sounds (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055