I have told you these things so that in me you will have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Anxiety can be a killer!
- The feeling of being overpowered by emotions such as fear, dread, and shame can take normally high functioning accomplished people and turn us to mush.
- When we are feeling anxious we become easily overwhelmed…unsure where we normally are certain; unsteady in familiar places, we become hyper aware of our faults and frailties instead of confident in our competencies and abilities.
- Anxiety takes the normal stresses of life and magnifies them into life-altering, fear inducing, mind numbing, seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
I recently watched the movie Snow White and The Huntsman and there is a scene where the two main characters, who happen to be in love, must fight their fellow huntsmen to secure their freedom.
We see the couple fight dozens of people: sweating, slashing and slaying until only the two of them remain. As they turn and smile at each other…victorious, their enemy, the queen extends her hand and erects a wall of ice between them.
Undeterred the male huntsman begins chipping away at the ice with his sword, when he sees his beloved killed on the other side. When he stops and screams out in pain and agony he is captured and thrown over a cliff.
As we watch this drama unfold, dread fills our hearts. All seems suddenly lost.
- Love has literally died and hopelessness begins to take root .
- Just like that, their victory turns into a stunning defeat.
- This is how anxiety catches us off guard. One minute we are on top of the world!
- We are feeling good, looking good, we are experiencing success, love and /or happiness and we feel our “happily ever after” coming around the corner, when “just like that” the bottoms fall out of our lives.
- We get sick, a loved one dies, our child does the unthinkable, our spouse betrays us or our job lays us off.
During these moments it is easy to look at our situation and become anxious, however, the word tells us “I have told you these things so that in me you will have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Another translation puts it this way “I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”
Instead of succumbing to despair and allowing our anxiety to overtake us, Jesus tells us to trust Him…to take heart!
- Through our relationship with Jesus we have access to the very power of almighty God, which makes us “unshakable, assured and deeply at peace” in situations that threaten to take us out.
- But while we know this in our minds, sometimes executing this trust in our hearts is difficult. How does this trust move from our minds to our hearts you may ask?
Let’s go back to Snow White and The Huntsmen. When we last left our hero and heroine, all hope seemed lost…he had been thrown off a cliff and she had been killed…or so we thought.
- We eventually learn that the wall of ice the queen erected not only separated them physically but had the power to show them, what the queen wanted them to see.
- They hadn’t really died, it just seemed that way.
The wall of ice didn’t have the power to shape their reality or change their destiny only to change their perception.
- In the same way, Fear, anxiety and worry are tools that the adversary uses to distort our perception making it seem like all hope is lost.
- The adversary knows that if he can change our perception, then we will change our destiny and not for the better.
Today’s scripture doesn’t tell us that seeing is believing, but rather it tells us that trusting is believing.
- Trusting Jesus makes us take heart…makes us unshakable and assured so that we can be at peace even at the most difficult times.
- You see the white witch understood that the only way to keep the huntsmen down was to put a wall of lies between them.
The adversary does the same to us by trying to erect walls of lies between us and our Savior…by making it seem like Jesus doesn’t care, or like Jesus had abandoned us.
- But when we are anchored in Jesus, our relationship assures us that everything is not as it seems.
- The light of His truth exposes the enemies lies and assures us of Gods presence and promises.
We know that trouble never ceases, but we also know that Jesus has already overcome any trouble that comes our way.
There is a song whose chorus says:
Our God is greater,
Our God is Stronger,
God you are higher than any other.
Our God is healer, awesome in power, Our God
Then the next chorus says:
And if our God is with us
Than who could ever stop us
And if our God is for us
Then who could stand against us
As you go throughout your day and your week, and trouble rears its ugly head remember that our God is greater than any trouble you may face!
Our God is stronger than any anxiety that you may feel!
Our God is higher than any wall of lies the adversary may try to erect in your life.
Our God can heal any sickness or broken heart.
Our God is more powerful than any hopelessness we may feel.
Our God IS with us
No one Can stop us
Our God IS for us
NOTHING can stand against us
Take heart my friends…take heart!!!!
