Day 36 - Issue 23
John 14:1 NLT
'Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.'
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, “Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.” I have pondered this often and recognise that trouble, defined as stress, anxiety, concern, feeling unsettled etc, plays a significant part in each one of our lives. Why is it that when Katey was unexpectedly late home from work, I began to fret that something terrible must have happened to her? Normally a delay at school, or heavy traffic was the reason, but my mind moved towards the catastrophic in the first instance.
Anxiety and stress have a physical impact upon us. I can feel my chest tightening, my breathing becomes shallower, my muscles tense. My emotions are equally influenced and concentration on anything other than the issue of concern seems impossible. Then, of course, when anxiety was resolved, and Katey walked through the door, I could react out of my anxiety and project blame, as though she deliberately caused my stress.
The response to anxiety is twofold, and both grow from calculating happiness. First I am invited to recall that God has my best interests at heart, even when it feels anything but the case. Then I am to take charge of my heart and move back into living in the secure knowledge that God exercises full control of every detail of life.
Following Jesus is not a passive activity. We exercise the faith muscle, much as we do any physical muscle required to move our mortal frame. God’s word is clear and true, yet we are expected to act upon it. So I choose to live within God’s provision, even when my circumstances appear to paint a different picture. This is calculating my happiness, for such happiness flourishes once I acknowledge all I have made available to me in God. Jesus invites his disciples to choose to live on the positive side of revelation, rather than fearing the likelihood of calamity and worse.
QUESTION: What things make you anxious?
PRAYER: Lord, help me trust you in the midst of all the things that can cause me to worry and lose sight of you.
