His Peace
Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
Life sure is full of challenges and difficulties. The economy, war, viruses, disasters, poverty and more can make you reach for the antacids. Then on top of that there are any number of issues that hit home. Cars break, appliances die, incidents outside of our control cause us to miss appointments or to reach destinations. Our bodies are frail. We might get injured or sick. And with all these challenges making life hard, our natural tendency is to get anxious, worried, or frustrated. Sometimes we hit the trifecta and get all three at the same time!
Were you aware that anxiety is the most common nervous disorder of our time? It really is inescapable. But when anxiety and fear do set in, we can examine where our trust lies. Are you trusting yourself in these difficult situations? Are you trying to control the outcomes? Or, do you have faith that God is as good as He says He is and trust that He is a good Father who loves you, His child?
What I’ve come to believe is that when I’m anxious it’s a call to my faith. I’m allowing anxiety to push out faith or block out the Holy Spirit’s transformative effects on my heart and mind. Paul wrote in Philippians 4 that as we build our relationship with God, the Holy Spirit will usher in a peace and calm over our emotions and our thoughts. In other words, given the opportunity, God’s peace always overcomes chaos.
When anxiety and chaos surround us, I pray that we learn to set our minds on the things above and come to God with our problems and our worries – because He cares for us. Hope allows us to begin to understand the things that are in our control and those things that are not and give them over to God. It isn’t easy for sure, but God has ways of showing up in those situations that might bring us down - if we give Him the room to work.
“God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”