Business failures. Layoffs. A shaky stock market and weak economy. It’s not hard to find things to be anxious over today. If it’s not national crises, a variety of everyday problems can disturb us: the lump discovered on a breast; the divorce papers served yesterday; the wayward teen who felt the tug into rebellion; dwindling retirement funds.
If you find that fear of the future immobilizes you, try overcoming it through the simple act of remembering.
Remember the Creator
The God who created you controls your life. He who spoke the universe into existence understands economic downturns and oversees counseling sessions and chemotherapy. He rightly asks, “Who is my equal?” (Isaiah 40:25).
Because of God’s ownership, life, with all its fearful debris, rotates around the fixed axis of His divine sovereignty. “This is my Father’s world,” the hymn says — not yours, not the government’s, not the surgeon’s who will be operating in the morning. This doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen but that God will help you when you don’t know what to do. You can count on Him to give sanity in the midst of panic, and work bad into good — if you love Him (Romans 8:28).
It’s easy to forget this. One negative report from the blood test, a down day on Wall Street, and God shrinks. But the truth is, if you rightly remember the Creator, you shrink — not God: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, . . . what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3, 4).
Despite what you see or can’t see, what you feel or dread, God’s world has purpose and plan. Mistakes and mishaps do not have the final word.
Remember the past
God knows that our perspective of the future is often limited to what we can see. That’s why the refrains of “remember” and “do not forget the past” lace the Scriptures together. If you fear the future, try remembering “the deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 77:11).
Let Psalm 105 show you how. It traces God’s work in behalf of the Israelites: He protected them from oppression; permitted Joseph to be enslaved, planning the key to future survival through him; made the Israelites fruitful; empowered Moses and Aaron to perform miracles before Pharaoh and the people; sent plagues and led the Israelites out of Egypt; guided them with fire at night and a cloud by day; supplied food and water in the wilderness; gave them lands of other nations.
Notice the detail; it’s there to prove how essential a good memory is. Failing to recall God’s specific help in the past puts a person in danger of failing to depend on Him for the future.
That’s what happened to the Israelites: “They gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses . . .” (106:7). When the people faced new challenges after their deliverance, they refused to wait for God’s counsel because they had forgotten what He’d done (v. 13). In no time, forgetfulness gave way to rebellion, impatience, murmuring, complaining, envy, idolatry, and ultimately unbelief.
Likewise, when fear overwhelms, you tend to forget what God has done for you in times past. By now, you’ve probably racked up enough mileage to offer a fair survey of the road behind. Where in your journey did God intervene? When did He send a messenger of hope? When did He change an attitude and bring peace? How did He supply your needs? In custody battles, court appearances, caring for aging parents, adjustments to singleness, long-term illnesses, and separation through death and divorce, you can trace God’s providential hand.
You might try writing your own version of Psalm 105, especially if you find yourself more prone to the attitude in Psalm 106. Recounting the Red Seas in your past means that you can once again “Look to the Lord and His strength [and] seek his face always” (105:4).
Remember, God remembers
God has a unique memory. When we repent, He remembers our sins against us no more (Isaiah 43:25). But He never forgets those children He formed in the womb (49:15, 16).
Genesis offers an account of yet another dimension of God’s memory. Keeping it in mind will help you place a firm grip on fears about the future.
God decided to destroy the earth with a flood. But He promised to save Noah if he followed the instructions for building an ark and loaded family and animals in it. Will the pitch hold? Noah may have wondered. Is the wood strong enough to endure the torrents? Once the ark comes to rest, then what?
For forty days God remained silent. The writer of Genesis says that after the waters flooded the earth about five months, “God remembered Noah . . .” (Genesis 8:1). This doesn’t imply that God had forgotten His servant for a while and suddenly recovered His memory. It means that God was always mindful of His promise to preserve Noah, his family, and the animals (6:18) but had delayed fulfilling it.
A wind blew over the earth, and the floodwaters receded. In the seventh month, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat and with it rested whatever doubts Noah may have had. When conditions were right, God permitted Noah, his family, and the animals to disembark into a fresh, clean world.
God has made many promises to us in His Word. Consider which ones you can look to when you’re paralyzed by fear of the future. He pledges strength and aid when you’re terrified (Isaiah 41:10). He vows that the waters will not overwhelm you, that the fire won’t scorch you (43:2). He promises perfect peace if you keep your mind riveted on Him (26:3).
Holding steady
Richard Fuller writes about an old seaman’s wisdom: “In fierce storms we must do one thing, for there is only one way to survive: we must put the ship in a certain position and keep her there.” Fuller likens our soul to a ship in a storm: We must put it in one position and refuse to move it, no matter what.
When the waves of fear roll you from side to side, exercising your memory holds your soul in a steady position of trust. The Creator’s control, His past help, and a sharp memory of His promises — with these, you can face the storms of fear with confidence.
*Reproduced with permission from The Bible Advocate
Ironic as it might seem, the further we progress along the Way to which we are called as Christians, the more it seems we see the failings and errors of our own nature. That can be discouraging at times, but when it happens we need to remember something.
The Bible gives us two stories that speak to this situation, though we might not realize it unless we give the matter some thought. The first story, in the Old Testament, relates to a vision of the prophet Isaiah:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple… “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:1, 5).
Isaiah’s very clear reaction on seeing God in this vision was one of understanding his own spiritual inadequacy and “uncleanness.” Now compare this story with another in the New Testament – how Jesus revealed his divine power to Peter and the men fishing with him:
“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret … he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”…. When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break …. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:1-8).
Although these two stories may seem very different on the surface, Peter’s reaction to seeing even a small glimpse of Jesus’ divinity was not unlike the effect of the vision of Isaiah – it was a realization of his own unworthiness and sinful nature. Admittedly, these events occurred at the beginning of the careers of the two servants of God, but the principle remains the same – the more we come to understand of God, the more we are conscious of our own failings.
It was many years after the conversion of the apostle Paul that he wrote: “What a wretched man I am!” (Romans 7:24), and “… I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle…” (1 Corinthians 15:9). Yet Paul continued this same thought to the Corinthian Christians: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect” (vs. 10). Despite his painful awareness of his own failings – after many years of God working with him – Paul could still say near the end of his life: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Both statements were true! Just like the rest of us, Paul doubtless realized his own spiritual failings all the more as the years progressed, yet he knew that God was changing him and completing a purpose in his life.
To use a simple analogy, before conversion we live in spiritual darkness – like living in a dark room – and cannot see any of the “stains” and “black marks” of sin that cover us. As we are converted and move toward the “light” (remember, God is spiritual light), the more we begin to see those black marks on ourselves – and the brighter the light becomes, the more we see even the smallest stains.
It is a simple truth of the Christian life that the more we grow and come to see God, the less we like what we see of ourselves. Yet this can be encouraging – looked at the other way around, the less we like what we see of ourselves the more we are probably seeing of God and moving closer to him!
This is not the same as living our lives in a despondent spiritual attitude that focuses on how unworthy we are. It is just an honest realization of our own spiritual inadequacy and a heightened awareness of ways in which we do fail – sometimes in small things that we would never have noticed earlier in our Christian lives. Perhaps we can say that our occasional discouragement with our own failings can be turned around. The more we see the failings of our own nature, the more we can be encouraged that we are doubtless moving closer to God who is enabling us to see those things. We can rejoice that just as we see ourselves more clearly as we move closer to God, he can continue the process of helping us to see him and making us more like him.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven …” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
Unless you live on a balmy tropical island where the temperatures stay fairly constant and there are few indications of seasonal change, your life is full of rhythms that you don’t think about much, but which are always there. Day and night, hot and cold, spring and fall, summer and winter, daily high temperatures and daily lows. We take such rhythms for granted and don’t particularly stress if we find ourselves in a period of darkness, cold, or whatever – we know that the warmth or the light will return in time.
Although we may understand and live with this aspect of physical life, as Christians we don’t always apply that understanding spiritually – although it is equally true of our spiritual lives. In his classic work The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis noted that there are times when God seems particularly close to us and our spiritual lives seem to go easily: our faith seems strong, we want to do what is right – and temptations to do otherwise are relatively easy to overcome. Yet there are other times when God may appear to be more distant, our faith seems less secure, and overcoming temptation is somehow harder.
Our spiritual lives, just like our physical lives, are a series of ups and downs, of “highs” and “lows” as well. But that is not the bad news we often presume it to be. In writing about this fluctuation in our spiritual experience, Lewis stated: “Now it may surprise you to learn that [God] … relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.” Although Lewis used the terms “peaks” and “troughs” and we may perhaps say “highs” and “lows,” his point is clear – and is one that is worth thinking about.
Lewis effectively argued that it is during our “troughs” or low periods, much more than during our “peaks” or high periods, that we are growing into the sort of creatures God wants us to be: “He wants [us] to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with [our] stumbles.” This is an important understanding of our spiritual lows – that during those times our efforts may be especially appreciated by God. So Lewis also writes, “… the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.” When we demonstrate that we want to continue to walk with God even when we do not feel inspired or particularly blessed or helped, we also demonstrate the reality of our faith and commitment.
That is a truly encouraging perspective if we can grasp it and make it ours. Although the spiritual aspect of our lives has its ups and downs and times of drought as well as times of abundance, God can and does use our spiritual low periods to increase our personal growth and service, if we let him. In fact, some of the greatest advances in Christian missionary and aid work have occurred at extreme low points in the lives of those who have been instrumental in bringing them about. Sometimes we are just more receptive to the needs of others and to possibilities to serve that we do not tend to see when we are cheerful and buoyed up in good times.
Just like the daily or seasonal weather cycles with their “high” and “low” temperatures, we will always experience highs and lows in our spiritual lives. But realizing that lows do not last forever and that while we are in them they may provide opportunities to grow that spiritual highs do not give us can make a big difference in how we live and what we accomplish. Looked at this way, we can strive to persevere through problems and discouragements not only in order to survive and to make it to the end of the road to which we are called, but also to grow and to accomplish more than we could perhaps otherwise have done.
*All C.S. Lewis quotes in this article are taken from chapter 8 of The Screwtape Letters, originally published in London during 1941 and 1942.
It may not sound like a very spiritual question, but it is a serious one.
Few of us are in danger of not getting enough sleep because we participate in all night sessions of prayer and study. The problem that most Christians face is trying to pray and study effectively – rather than sleepily – at the beginning or end of the day when they usually have opportunity for these spiritual activities.
But when we are tired at the end of the day or still tired in the morning after not enough sleep, it is difficult to seek God intently. Sometimes we need to seek God in very difficult situations – perhaps in the middle of the night – but under normal circumstances, in our regular day-to-day lives, if we really want to draw closer to God we need to “rest to be at our best.”
The principle is seen in an interesting story in the Old Testament. The Book of 1 Kings tells us that before meeting with God in difficult circumstances, the prophet Elijah did not study, fast, or meditate to be in top spiritual condition; he slept – and the account tells us he slept not once, but three times:
Elijah … went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night” (1 Kings 19:3-9).
Notice a couple of things about this unusual story. Elijah was on his way to meet with God at Horeb, the “Mountain of God,” but the account mentions specifically the sleep he took on the way – at least two naps and, presumably, a night’s sleep in the cave. Then God spoke to Elijah and the prophet entered into a conversation with him.
Fast forward to the New Testament and we find Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat before calming the storm (Matthew 8:24). This is not to say that Jesus had to rest before performing a miracle, but that he knew the value of rest even when conditions were difficult. That is why we find him telling his disciples to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31), and the word translated “rest” in this verse can mean sleep as well as relaxation (as in Matthew 26:45, Mark 14:41).
Now the exhortation is to get “some rest” or “rest awhile,” as some translations have it, not to rest or sleep all day or in times when we urgently need to be seeking God (Matthew 26:40-41). But again, we are talking about our normal day-to-day activities and what is effective and what is not when it comes to spending time with God.
The truth is, none of us can perform at our best spiritually on an ongoing basis when we are not getting the rest we need. The Book of Psalms tells us: “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:2). We can apply this principle to spiritual food also. The point the psalm is making is that God gives sleep to his people, those he loves, for a purpose – not just to be able to do another day’s work, but to help us most effectively seek and walk with him. David also put it this way: “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me” (Psalm 3:5 ESV).
Sleep is a gift that we need for our spiritual lives as well as for our physical well-being – we just have to decide to accept the gift.
“… the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
Some of us love the sight of a universal gym or a set of free weights. Some of us view such things as being remarkably like our idea of medieval torture devices. But whether we willingly undergo a hard workout or not, everyone admits that becoming physically stronger usually takes a lot of sweat and effort. Similarly, we may think that increasing spiritual strength usually involves hard work and the dedicated practice of disciplines such as prayer and fasting. So if I were to tell you there is a perfectly pleasurable and sweat-free way to increase your spiritual strength you would probably think I was selling something. Yet the Bible tells us that such a source of strength is available to us.
The verse quoted above from the Book of Nehemiah makes an amazing statement if we are willing to focus on it and accept it for what it says: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Given what we know of most strength-building exercises, this sounds almost too good to be true, but Nehemiah’s words are not just some pleasant poetic statement. It’s not that he just happened to mention joy and strength in the same sentence – there are actually a good number of biblical passages that link joy and strength directly.
In fact, 1 Chronicles 16:27 tells us that these qualities are linked in the nature of God himself: “Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place.” Once we begin to see the connection between joy and strength in this and numerous other verses, we begin to understand what the connection is. Joy is a source of strength that can help carry us through the difficulties of life just as much as determination and endurance, and in some ways more so.
It is true that Christians are among those who mourn for the evils of the world (Matthew 5:4) and that we experience pain and sorrow just like other people (John 16:33), but these are temporary reactions to specific situations, not our everyday attitude. Joy is the great strength-enhancer that shores up patience and enables endurance. It can carry us through pain and difficulties and enable us to focus on others even in difficult circumstances. Joy can actually enable us to accomplish incredible things beyond what would normally be possible. Do we believe and focus on that fact? Do we believe and focus on the fact that it helped Jesus himself to make the ultimate sacrifice: “… who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV, NKJV, etc., emphasis added).
Jesus specifically told his followers “These things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). Joy is an unmistakable hallmark of those who follow him closely. Those who were imprisoned with Dietrich Bonhoeffer before his execution said that he always spread an attitude of happiness and joy, despite his dire circumstances. Those who knew Mother Teresa say that although her work with the poor and the diseased would have depressed and even crushed many people, her attitude as she did her work was always one of joy. The kind of joy that gives us this strength is not entirely human made, of course. Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that deep, strengthening joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit of God, but we can help develop that joy by cultivating it in our daily thoughts and actions. To seek the strength of joy in our lives is not to spend our lives in seeking temporary pleasures, but to find joy in what God gives us each day – whatever the situation, whatever the difficulty. That is the lesson that those like Bonhoeffer and Mother Teresa had learned. It is a truth that Nehemiah understood thousands of years before our time, that joy and strength go hand in hand, and that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Happiness is something we all want, many strive for, but few feel they get. Could it be that we make finding happiness more difficult than it need be? For example, when we talk of “keys” of happiness, our minds tend to jump immediately to things like health, perhaps wealth, and other things we feel happiness is dependent upon.
But psychologists have known for a long time that there are even more basic things than those that might first come to mind – things that actually offer ongoing happiness and contentment. Numerous studies have found that to be lastingly happy we need three things above all else: someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.
The strange thing is, you can tell people that the correlation between these three things and happiness has been repeatedly documented, that there is good science behind these three “keys,” and they will still often ignore them. It’s as if the answer is too easy to take seriously.
Surely, many people think, you could have those three things, but without good health … or without enough money … or without whatever, you wouldn’t really be very happy. But that’s where the studies come in. Psychologists have verified that even without the things we tend to presume are necessary for happiness, we can still find that elusive condition if we do have the three “keys.”
For the Christian this is a particularly interesting fact. When we look closely at the life of Christ himself, we see that despite not having many of the things people usually equate with happiness and in spite of undergoing great suffering, Jesus was still able to seek and find great happiness and joy (Hebrews 12:2). In the same way, the apostle Paul wrote “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Philippians 4:11), and although we may presume this just means being “OK” about how things are, there is no doubt, when we read Paul’s writings, that he lived a life of true contentment despite the hardships he endured.
It is true that happiness – joy – is one of the fruits of the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:22), but the reason Christ and Paul experienced joy in their lives need not be entirely attributed to that reason. We have only to read the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ and to study the writings of the apostle Paul to see that both of them – and doubtless many others in the early Church – based their lives on the very things we have called the keys of happiness.
Christ calls his disciples to follow in his footsteps in constantly loving God and not just one person, but every person (John 13:34). Christians are called to a work which is of worldwide scale and in which anyone can find a truly meaningful role (Matthew 28:18-20). Followers of Jesus Christ also have more to look forward to than anyone else – the return of the One they follow and an eternal life in his service (Revelation 20:6-7, 22:12-13). These opportunities do not just “meet the requirements” of the keys of happiness – they fulfill them incredibly! Yet if we take away any one of these keys – if our outgoing love is limited, if we are not truly involved in the great work to which we were called, or if we do not keep the hope of our calling firmly in mind – we will not experience deep and lasting happiness and will always feel some degree of emptiness. It’s a little like having a safe with three keys – even having two out of three keys still will not open the safe. It is only as we use all three of the keys in our lives that we find happiness that doesn’t need more money or possessions, that doesn’t even require good health, but that is true and lasting happiness nothing can take away.
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