Tactics
The
Lord, on the other hand, wants us to slow down.
He wants us to pause and take in the bigger picture. He wants us to stop for a second and think
about what is really important. The Lord
wants us to understand that we aren’t behind, that we don’t have to catch up,
that we don’t have to juggle all of those balls in the air at the same
time. The Lord wants us to calm down, to
relax, to step back from the situation and look at it in the light of God’s
Word. And so let’s do that. Let’s step back and evaluate our lives in the
light of what God says in Isaiah 35:4-7:
Say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come,
he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and
the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then
will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and
streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground
bubbling springs. ”
Be strong.
Do not fear. Your God will
come. And he will save you. When we trust in these powerful words of our
Lord we don’t ever have to feel hurried or rushed again. We can slow down in this life and relax
because we can confidently rely on the promises of our God in whatever
situation may come up.
Hurried &
Worried
And that’s
important to remember because “situation” will come up in this life, wont’
they? That’s why the Lord starts out
with, “Say to those with fearful
hearts…” That word “fearful” is really
an interesting word because it doesn’t mean “to be afraid” or “to be
frightened.” God is not addressing those
of us who are physically in fear of something or someone. This word carries the connotation of being
quick, hurried, rushed. God is speaking
to those with frantic hearts, those with agitated and anxious thoughts, those
whose lives our hectic at times, who might make rash decisions, those whose
heartbeats are beating wildly from pressure and stress. And if you don’t fit that description right
now, I’m sure you have in the past and, chances are, you will fit that description
in the near future. Because who doesn’t
feel hurried and rushed at times? And
sometimes that happens more than once a day, doesn’t it? But when we’re hurried, we’re worried. We get all worked up about the things in our
lives and we start to speed up as well.
Our mind is racing with possible solutions and potential disasters, about
what can be done to fix the problem and what is beyond fixing. And we tend to be quick to the negative at
those times, aren’t we? We are very
pessimistic. We certainly aren’t
thinking about positive outcomes when we are rushed with worry!
Which is
nothing new. Think about some of the
examples in the Bible itself when Christians were quick to the negative because
they were rushed with worry. Jesus’
disciples were in a boat one afternoon on the Sea of Galilee as a violent storm
threatened to capsize the small vessel they were in. Jesus happened to be sleeping in the boat and
so they woke him up and said, “Master, do something ! We’re going to drown!” The disciples couldn’t possibly imagine that
anything good would come out of the situation because they were rushed with
worry and quick to the negative. Jesus,
though, calmly slowed them down, rebuked them for their lack of trust and then
he rebuked the wind and the waves, instantly making the waters quiet and calm.
Early on
in Jesus’ ministry he and his disciples were at a wedding. After a while the wine ran out and there was
apparently a scramble to find more wine for the guests. You can almost imagine the scene of a worried
host and frantic relatives going to neighbors’ houses or the stores in town but
not knowing what to do. Jesus’ mother
even approached her Son and told him to do something about it. Everyone was quick to the negative and rushed
with worry. But Jesus calmly slowed his
mother down, “My time has not yet come.”
And when “his time” did come around, Jesus simply turned about 150
gallons of water into the best wine anyone had ever had.
Years
before that incident happened in the land of Cana, Jesus’ parents lost their 12
year old son in the capital city of Jerusalem.
For three days Mary and Joseph scoured the city looking for the Son of
God whom they had misplaced. How could
anything good happen from this situation?
How could this possibly turn out in their favor? But then they happened upon the temple, there
they found Jesus, questioning and answering the teachers of the law. “Son,
why have you treated us like this?” Mary asked.
“Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you!” Calmly and slowly Jesus answered, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s
house?” Even the strongest of
Christians: Jesus’ disciples and his own mother and father were quick to the negative
and were rushed with worry at times even when they had witnessed the power of
God before. Are we any different?
We have experienced
God’s power in our lives for year. But
when unexpected problems come up in our lives we are instantly quick to the
negative. Difficulties seem to build up
and build up as the days go by and we are rushed with worry. And instead of slowing down and calming down
and trusting firmly in the power and promises of our God, we let the situation
get the best of us and we can’t think straight and we can’t get our mind to
stop turning and we can’t get our stomach to settle. But are God’s promises that unreliable? Is his power that weak? Has your Lord ever let you down before so
that you would treat him with such disrespect?
What more does the Lord have to do for you to prove his love? What more does the Lord have to do for you to
gain your trust?
Jesus Slows Us
Down
Say to those with fearful [frustrated,
flustered, and frazzled] hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come… and
he will come to save you.” Be strong.
Do not fear. Your God will
come. And he will save you. There’s a promise of God. And that promise is not unreliable. His power is not weak. And he has proven that throughout the
centuries! Time and time again
throughout the stories of the Bible, we read that whenever any of his children
were struggling or upset, worried or rushed, he slowed them down and calmed
them down with his power and his promises.
We could talk all day about people like Abraham who was afraid that he
would be killed and his wife taken from him; Moses who had to run away from
Pharaoh; David who was hunted down for years by the king; Jeremiah whose life
was in danger from people in his home town.
These were Christians who underwent a tremendous amount of pain and
difficulty, but they were also Christians who were continually soothed by the
promise of a coming Savior. Just like we
are.
Our
Savior slows us down and soothes us with his love. Whenever you get frustrated in this life and
don’t know what else to do, your Savior calmly reminds you about what he did:
how he put his life in harm’s way for you, how he shouldered every one of your difficulties,
how he carried every one of your pains - so that you do not have to carry them
at all. Whenever you get flustered in
this life by all of the responsibilities and obligations that have fallen into
your lap and you can’t even seem to get your head on straight, your Savior
calmly reminds you about what was placed on his head: a makeshift crown full of
thorns as he hung there on that cross, bleeding for every sin, and suffering
for every mistake of every person of every nation. Whenever you get frazzled in this life and
your emotions are frayed, your Savior calmly leads you to the place where he tied
up every loose end: that newly hewn tomb that remained occupied for only three
days, that death chamber that could not hold death, that grave in which our Savior
came back to life. Because there, on
that Sunday morning we now call Easter, all of the problems and all of the
worries and all of the stresses of this life were done away with. Your problems are no longer unfixable in the
light of the tomb, your worries are no longer unmanageable in the light of the
tomb, your stresses are no longer unbearable in the light of the tomb. Everything is all right in the light of Jesus’
empty tomb! Because that same God who
made that tomb empty makes sure that your life will run according to his plans
still today.
Trust He Can Do
It
Just
slow down and trust that he can do it. Just
like the deaf and mute man who trusted Jesus’ touch in Mark 7. Just like the crippled man who trusted Jesus’
power through Peter and John in Acts 3.
Just like all of those Christians for thousands of years who trusted
Jesus’ promises in Isaiah 35. Trust that
your God, who was able to take all your sins and all your pains and all your
troubles and put them on the shoulders of his Son, is able to do everything
necessary to mend anything in your life now.
Now that doesn’t mean he will fix every problem in your life - because
sometimes that’s not what is best for you (or me!). But if it will ultimately be for your good,
know he can. And he can because he holds
the upper hand over Satan, he holds the victory over death, he holds your
sinful nature at bay, and he holds your life in the palm of his hand. Trust that he will never let you go. That is exactly what he promises, after all.
And so
there’s no need to rush, is there? There
is no need to quicken your steps or speed up your efforts. There is no need to be worried or anxious or
frustrated with the thousands of things that can infect your mind every
day. Slow down. Relax.
Take in the bigger picture so you don’t get caught up in the dirty
details of a day in the life of a sinner on this earth. Your God can do what needs to be done. You God has already done what needs to be
done! And he will continue to do so
until he comes again to take you home. “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come…
and he will come to save you.”
Amen.
“He who testifies
to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come Lord Jesus.” Amen.
- Rev. 22:20
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