Do You Not Care, Jesus?
.
by Lynne May
Scripture tells us, "Do not be anxious
about anything (Philippians 4:6)" and
"Cast all your anxieties on him, for he
cares about you" (1 Peter 5:6). The habit
of anxious thinking has tricked me
into believing I can't overcome it. But
from the Scriptures I have discovered
the truth that I can learn to overcome
it and kick it out of my soul, mind, and
heart, because Jesus Christ has given me
the authority to do so. When I
experience anxiety, I know that it
has often led me to either consciously or
unwittingly welcome it into my thought
life and opened the front door of my soul
to it.
It’s a habit that began at a young age,
though I didn’t realize I was developing
it: welcoming anxiety into my life when I
wanted to see a problem solved. Somewhere
along the way, as a child, I came under
the false belief that if I just strived
and strived and anxiously strived,
my life would become easier, and my
problems would go away. Peace was not
easily come by and ‘letting go and letting
God’ transform and change me was a foreign
concept.
When I think of the Scriptures, and
moments when there could have been
legitimate cause for anxiety, I think of
the disciples in the boat with Jesus
during the intense storm (Matthew
8:23-27). As one friend put it, it’s like
they were saying to Jesus, “Master, do you
not care that we are going down?” And
Jesus is asleep in the boat. “What’s up
with that?!” Is my raw gut reaction. Yeah:
to all appearances, it looks like they
were about to go down. Yeah: Why didn’t
Jesus wake up and calm them, before they
couldn’t seem to help themselves from
waking him up?
In my humanity, it boggles my mind. But
the truth is, if they had believed in who
he was in the midst of this storm, that
they had the Messiah, the Lord of the
Universe, the One who created and even
separated the waters, they would not have
been anxious. They could have put more
faith in the safety and identity of Jesus
than in the storm they saw, the storm they
experienced. They had that choice, in
their free will. Their circumstances were
to some degree dangerous and somewhat
bleak. But even if that was the case, they
had THE Messiah, they had God, sleeping
by their side. True Safety. True
Comfort.
So what does this teach me? That Jesus
Christ is with me, too. He’s always in the
boat. And why is he asleep? Not because he
disregards my cause, but because he trusts
and finds comfort and peace in belonging
to his heavenly Father, and because he
knows he has dominion over creation. In
the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Why do
you complain? . . . Why do you say,
Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord; my
cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you
not know? . . . The Lord is the
everlasting God, the Creator of the ends
of the earth” (Isaiah 40:27-28).
This teaches me that I can “fall asleep”
and rest easy, too. I can be at peace,
even in the storm, because Jesus is with
me. I can get my eyes off my
circumstances, not focus on my problems
and storms, because they will surely come,
but fix my inward gaze, my emotions, my
mind, my soul on who is with me in the
“boat”: Jesus! And when the storms seem to
be edging on overwhelm, and water begins
to trickle in and slop over the sides of
my little boat of life, I can rebuke them,
in the name of Jesus, and invite peace and
calm into my life. I can declare that he
is in the boat with me, and I will not be
afraid or anxious.
I can repent and say: “In the name of
Jesus, I repent of anxiety. Jesus, the
truth is that you are in control, you are
the Lord, and you are with me, even if
there are storms.” Next, I can say, “In
the name of Jesus, anxiety get outta here!
Go to Jesus. I renounce you.” Then, I can
pray, “Father, bring me peace. Give me
your supernatural peace. Thank you that
you are with me.”
So let’s choose not to let anxiety rattle
our chain. Someone once said that the evil
one is like a dog on a chain, firmly
chained to a tree. He can’t actually bite
or get at us unless we begin to enter into
his territory.
So we have a choice. It’s a choice of
will to not let anxiety have power over
us. It’s not all on us, we do need
to turn to Jesus for his help, but we
do have the free will to
choose to turn to him, and that’s our part
in all of this. Now this is not to say
that professional counseling and
medications cannot help us in this area of
anxiety, that God cannot use them. But it
is true that each of us has a mind and a
will that play a part in the fight for
peace in our souls.
Let’s try not to allow our problems, our
circumstances, other people, our bosses,
our neighbors, and not even the driver in
front of us holding up traffic at the most
inconvenient of times, anyone or anything
else have control, power over us, but
Jesus Christ.
This isn’t easy stuff. This is real soul
work that the Holy Spirit wants to help us
with. If you wrestle with getting easily
stressed or anxious, you know that it
takes real effort to relax. It is a real
discipline to be cultivated over time. But
this is what it means to let him be Lord
of all of our lives. New habits take time.
Yet old ones really can become totally
undone and replaced.
We really can let him remain on the throne
and acknowledge that he is with us in the
boat, always. It’s most tempting to take
control back or believe the lie that he is
not with us when we’re either under high
stress or maybe, when things are going
really well. To stop praying, to stop
talking to him, to quit making eye contact
with him. To stop turning to him. To stop
keeping him at the center of our gaze. But
this is not how we have learned Christ. In
the words of the apostle Paul, we have
learned that our call is “to be made new
in the attitude of our minds” and to “put
on the new self, created to be like God”
(Ephesians 4:20, 23, 24). This “new
attitude of our minds” tells us that Jesus
loves us, he has a plan for us –
every day, every moment of
every hour, he has a perfect plan, a good
plan. Let us choose to stake our lives on
this truth more than what we may see in
our everyday lives during a difficult
season.
So today, take a few moments and close
your eyes, and hold your breath for a few
seconds: let this remind you that you
cannot even take a breath without God’s
life in you! Every breath, every moment
you’re alive is GIFT from him and
irrefutable evidence of his deep love for
you.
Then let your breath out: let this remind
you that whatever you’re trying to hold
onto, tempted to hold onto, anxiously and
fearfully, more than Jesus, is not worth
it. Let it go. Just let it go.
Don’t you want to get some rest, and lay
your weary little soul and heart down in
the boat next to Jesus? Go for it. Dare to
let the storms rage; he’ll rebuke them, in
his time. He’ll calm them. Yes, you can
trustingly ask him. But trust more in him
who is ever with you. Answer his gentle
invitation to join him in resting in the
security of knowing that you are a dearly
beloved daughter of the heavenly Father.
No storm can shake my
inmost calm
While to that refuge
clinging
Since Christ is Lord
of heaven and earth
How can I keep from
singing?
[Lynne
May is a member of the Work
of Christ Community in Lansing,
Michigan, USA]
This article
first appeared in The Lovely Commission,
a publishing venture and brand of Kairos
North America. Used with
permission.
The Lovely Commission is run
by Molly Kilpatrick and Mary Rose Jordan and
a team of contributors from various
Christian communities in North America
and beyond. Together they are working to
build a culture of radical love,
femininity, modesty of heart, mind, and
body amongst young women.
Their aim is to inspire
and equip young women to embrace and
promote a culture of Godly femininity in
which we live out our rich identity as
daughters of God and disciples of Jesus
Christ.
top illustration: Christ Asleep
on the Storm-tossed Sea, by Eugene
Delacroix
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