So how do we overcome fear, anxiety and insecurity? As I mentioned in Part 1, we are surrounded by fear and those who promote it. Each day we hear that the polar caps are melting, Iran is developing nukes, and another great depression is just around the corner. We hear about super bugs , identity theft, terrorist cells, China, North Korea, giant asteroids, and a million other things that threaten our safety and security according to every news broadcast and talk show. Some of those threats are real. Some are only perceived. The truth is that I can hardly affect any of those sources of fear. They are out of my control and the real truth about each of those circumstances seems unknowable. The realization of that only increases the fear of many because so much we cannot control could affect us. What I need is to have someone in my life who cares for me deeply and who is bigger, more powerful, and more resourced than any of those issues.
The truth is that every follower of Jesus already has that person in his/her life. The answer to fear, however, is not the fact of that reality but a genuine belief that it is true for us personally. That is faith and faith unlocks the resources of heaven. Faith makes heaven’s peace accessible to us. Since the answer to anxiety is peace and since peace comes by faith, how then, do we grow in that faith?
First of all, we must believe that God exists. If there is no God, then we are certainly on our own in a dangerous and random universe. However, if you are a follower of Jesus, you should have already crossed that bridge. The next step, then, is to believe that God is more than willing to be intimately involved in your life. The key to peace in a world of threats is to believe that God is willing to be involved in your life as much as he was in the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Peter, and Paul. We tend to think that God did great things for his extraordinary people back then, but is not so willing to be involved in our lives because we are ordinary people and really not all that spiritual.
What we forget is that God got involved in the lives of his extraordinary people long before they were any of that. Abraham put Sarah at risk twice because he didn’t believe God could protect him from minor kings through whose land he was passing. Moses resisted God’s call to greatness at the burning bush episode so much that God became angry. David was just a red-faced kid tending sheep when he was anointed to be king. Jacob was a cheater and deceiver when God renamed him Israel. Rahab was a idolatrous hooker when God called her to be a woman of faith. Mary Magdalene had seven demons before becoming a notable figure in the little group that followed Jesus around and the twelve were made up of uneducated fishermen, crooked tax collectors, and political terrorists. One gave up Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and they all ran off into the night when Jesus was arrested.
My point is that God got very involved in each of the lives of these unremarkable people before they ever became remarkable. If you have responded to the gospel, then God has already demonstrated his personal involvement in your life. So much so that he lives within you. So get over the idea that he is not willing to be there for you, because he already has been.
Secondly, we need biblical expectations of God’s involvement in our lives. I have talked to many believers who have taken offense at God because they feel he betrayed them at some point in their past. They felt betrayed because something bad happened to them as a child or as an adult – sickness, death, divorce, abuse, etc. They believed that God had promised to keep bad things from happening to them because they were Christians and so he broke his promise when tragedy hit. Therefore, they don’t expect him to be there for them when the next tragedy strikes. They still feel as if they are on their own in a very dangerous world.
Some preacher or well meaning evangelist may have told them that once you come to Jesus all your troubles are over, but the Bible never says that. God never says he will keep you from trouble. What he does say is that he will join you in the midst of your trouble and walk you through it.
Paul declared, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (2 Cor.1:3-4). Notice that the promise is not that God will keep us from trouble but that he will comfort us in our troubles so we can comfort other believers in their troubles. In John 16:33, Jesus said that in this world, we will have trouble. In the 23rd Psalm David wrote that we may well have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He said that God prepares a table for him…but, in the midst of his enemies. David faced death on many occasions and was often surrounded by his enemies. His faith was that God would sustain him as he went through those trials rather than believing that God would keep him from the trials. Every person of faith in the Bible went through hard times and faced personal tragedies, but found God in a greater way through those hard times. Our offense with God is often misplaced.
Thirdly, we must focus on what God has done for us rather than on what we believe he has not done. When David was about to face Goliath, he recounted how God had delivered him from the lion and the bear in the past and so he concluded that God would not fail him in the coming challenge. The scriptures are full of commands to remember what God had done. The command is not a fascination with history but the idea is that whatever God has done in the past, he is willing to do again. Having faith for that is a key to overcoming anxiety.
The next objection is always, “Yes, but…..God didn’t save my marriage or my child died anyway or he didn’t keep my father from molesting me…” Those are serious and tragic events. They are part of the trouble we will have in this world. Where there is free will,there is also the ability to hurt others. According to Isaiah 61, Jesus came to heal broken hearts, set captives free, rebuild ruined lives, etc. God knows damage has been done. It is the cost of sin in a fallen world, but the promise is that God will take what the enemy has damaged or destroyed and rebuild, restore, and heal. That knowledge certainty brings peace even in the face of ruin.
Again…I think the big fear is that we are ultimately alone in a hostile world. Ask the Lord to take you on a tour of your past and show you the evidence of his hand and his grace even in the midst of tragedy and ask him to even show you the grace he extended that you turned down because you were hurt or angry. If you are a follower of Jesus, know that he has been following you as well. Perhaps, he has been standing in the shadows at times but he has been there to catch you, stand you up again,and to deflect the arrows of the enemy more times than you can know. Ask for a revelation of that truth and a gift of faith. Ask for the peace of Jesus Christ that surpasses understanding.
Finally, we must be willing to live with mystery at times when things didn’t work out the way we prayed or the way we desperately wanted. The cross is ultimately the answer because it declares that God is good and that God is love. We must choose that view of
God at times when we can’t understand why something has or hasn’t happened. At those times, we must choose to believe that the God who died for me still cares for me – not for people in general, but for me. Then make his promise that “I will never leave you or forsake you” your answer to every fear the devil sends you way.
