Jesus in Our Life-line

I Peter 5:7  Don’t worry or surrender to your fear. For you have believed in God, now trust and believe in me also. (TPT) 

John 14:1 Let him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you. (TLB)

These two scriptures have been a training ground for my life. They have encouraged me, have taught me to lean on Jesus, grounded me in trusting God in the midst of chaos, and have been my life-line.

The training process always begins with the small-stuff; learning to walk as you lay your worries, cares and fears at the feet of Jesus; not too hard, right? Then when the medium-sized worries begin to filter into your life you learn to strengthen your resolve and move forward. You’ve got this – this isn’t so bad? These scriptures may now have become a simple platitude.

Well, the training is not complete; the large-ones, the overwhelming worries, cares and fears step into your life. Now, you have to chew on these scriptures, pray them out-loud and spend considerable time at the feet of Jesus; leaving them there over and over again. It’s during these times you will learn a powerful truth, one of fighting forward!

Once you think you have conquered the understanding of these two scriptures, you have a solid foundation. But, there are still Goliath-sized worries ahead. Right now, living in the midst of an unseen virus, you watch in horror as a tsunami of crushing waves strike day after day. Your life has been turned up-side-down and that foundation might find a few cracks from the shaking.

Today in the midst of a pandemic where debilitating fear, pain and anxiety saturate your environment; your resolve begins to dissolve and your armor and strength to fight-forward is slipping. Here, enters the need for your life-line! Here, you have nothing left within yourself but your faith! From here you are able to find your place to fight-forward, only as you continually spend time in Gods presence.

Our sustaining refuge is found at the feet of Jesus. As we wait in His presence, sit at His feet, worship and read His Word, we will find our peace, our faith and our resolve to stand up. It is in this place that we will, again, be able to pick up our armor and willingly move to the front-lines to fight-forward.

There will be days where we will be weak and shaky, where our faith will waver but as we learn where our help comes from, as we learn to live by these scriptures, they will become an encouragement and a grounding of our faith. As we sit at the feet of Jesus with our heavy hearts, fears and pain we will find our only true life-line – Jesus. He is waiting there for you, join me at His feet where you will find the courage and peace to get up and fight-forward.

Worries of the Heart

Decisions, decisions, decisions – they loom over and around us every day. Some are small and easy but then there are those “heavies”. When we are faced with major decisions that are overwhelmingly life impacting, our thoughts and worries of the heart become extremely heavy and peace is nowhere to be found. It’s in these times that wisdom is critically needed and often very hard to find.

In the midst of a month of one of those times I found myself emotionally riding a roller-coaster. All the natural solutions spun my heart and mind further and faster downward. But still the decisions kept asking to be made, drawing me closer daily to that undesirable deadline. Crying, praying, researching and reaching out to “those who surely knew the answer” – all to no avail. The more I opened myself up to hear others opinions the more I had NONE and the more confused I became. I KNEW I did not need man’s wisdom – because I had heard so much of that – I needed God’s wisdom.

Where there is no peace – fear and confusion reign. That is where I sat and that is NOT where the Lord wanted me to sit!

Asking for wisdom, when we really want to hear His wisdom is a prayer that He always answers. However, we must get to the end of us in order to hear it – that’s why we often take that horrific roller-coaster down-hill-speeding-bullet ride. We must get to the end of us and our efforts to “fix” the situation.

Thus, began my prayer for the Wisdom of God to intervene. In the midst of confusing and frustrating circumstances (God’s directed intervention) I waited as He unfolded that gift. I ended up on the end of a phone line with God’s appointed distributor of His wisdom. With patience, knowledge, compassion and wisdom that conversation brought the answers that flowed like honey and instantly peace flooded in. Within a short conversation, amazingly all that indecision and emotional struggle disappeared.

Not to say, all is now well and good – those decisions now must be walked through, but often the decision is what stifles and causes us to sit in the mire of fear and confusion. Once His wisdom is dispensed the burden lifts – His love pours in and fear must leave – leaving the peace that passes all understanding.

When there is no peace – stop, back up, ask and wait for His peaceable wisdom. It’s always available – even when you somehow end up taking a few spins on that roller-coaster first.

James 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.