The only struggles worth knowing are the ones that bring you to your knees. Few are they who learn without having had to persevere through trials, in whichever form. Grief is a suitable example. Nearly everyone on earth, but for perhaps children who have yet to experience loss, can identify with grief and empathize with those for whom sorrow is a condition.
Anger is another. Anger is ubiquitous. And destructive. Anger can be found everywhere, and everywhere anger is found, so too is damage. Damaged relationships, damaged psyches, damaged perceptions. The lens through which we see our lives, and our intents, becomes distorted when the mind is awash with anger. Though it fades over time, the harm caused in its wake often requires some serious patchwork.
How about anxiety? The mind races. The heart races. Alarm bells in the brain ring with fraudulent authority and, with immediacy, a cavalcade of troubling, if not crippling, thought patterns emerge, thus begetting a cycle from which it can be difficult to escape. Like grief and anger, anxiety is a commonality among us humans. But that’s not the only problem. Far from it. The other problem, and it is no small matter, is that depression in many instances accompanies anxiety.
In February of 2023, an extensive study conducted by members of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences from the University of California (San Francisco) claimed that cases of suicide, suicidal ideation, and self-harm involving children between the ages of 10 and 14 rose 151% within the first ten months of 2020, an increase which coincided with the onset of the COVID pandemic. A study the previous year by the World Health Organization declared that there had unsurprisingly been a 25% jump in anxious and depressive symptoms among adults worldwide. Kids and grown-ups alike have been taking more and more mental, emotional, and spiritual beatdowns, it would seem, in recent years, all whilst existing in a culture that offers plenty of confusion and distraction, and nothing else.
The Solution
The solution is simple: engaging a relationship with Jesus Christ. Here are two direct quotes from Christ parsed from two of the four Gospel accounts (Matthew and Luke, respectively) that provide critical reminders to remember, both of which effectively demonstrate the power of God’s Word as well as His unrivaled, ever-present knowledge of our circumstances.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
What God does, has done, and says cannot and will not ever be obscured — no matter what. Regardless of whatever is going on in the world, and regardless of whatever it is that we are enduring – whether in fleeting moments or throughout seasons of our lives — God’s Word is unchanging, just as His character is unchanging. Turbulence in life is eventual. Very much so. Now and in the future. The context in which Jesus is speaking in this section of Matthew 24 depicts the end times and the signs which indicate that such a time is approaching, and what will happen when it does in fact arrive. Jesus wants His disciples to pay attention. He was not describing these things only to them, He was also describing these events for our benefit. If you are a follower of Christ, you, too, are His disciple.
But that one verse delivers an absolutely vital reminder, even if isolated out of context. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” The “by no means” part does not necessitate a grand exploration. Re-read it. “By no means” — in other words, nothing can stop His Word, nothing can stymie His teaching, or His encouragement, and definitely not His ever-present and all-powerful love that He has for you, and was put on display for all of history to witness through His death on the cross.
When you are struggling and digging into Scripture for comfort, remember that the words you are encountering are eternal, and they were recorded for an eternal purpose — to point lost sheep (humanity) towards the Good Shepherd.
The Bible, God’s Word, is not antiquated nor ancient. It is alive. Right now. Be it on paper or in digital form, everything you read pulsates with a heavenly heartbeat. Hebrews 4:12 makes this crystal clear: “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
The Lord knows you with an intimacy that is beyond compare and, in a sense, reasonable comprehension. We tend to think that those around us in our general circles know us well. Those of us who are married figure that our spouses know us better than anyone else does. And, maybe they do. Maybe they understand us better than any other humans by whom we are surrounded. After all, they should. But they don’t know everything about us. Not really. The same goes for our closest friends, teammates, and coaches. They were not there for each moment of our lives, they do not know each of our passing thoughts, and despite our best efforts to be transparent, we do not often share with one another every single fear, insecurity, and mistake. We also might not divulge pain, or how badly we are grieving, or how much frustration with which we have been dealing.
But Jesus knows. Quite very well He knows. We might be able to hide various fears, frustrations, thoughts, and desires from spouses and friends, but they are not hidden from God. However, although He already has this knowledge, He still wants you to personally bring it to Him. It is not that the Lord refuses to calm the waters for you without your having made the request for Him to do so. In many instances, He does. We cannot know how many times He has bailed us out of trouble without our being made aware of it.
But because God so desires actual, legitimate fellowship with his creation, He also wants us to come to Him. Better put, He wants us to want to spend time with Him – “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). The issue is that we are by nature sinful — which in turn also means that we are selfish, stubborn, distracted, and plain clueless. Therefore, sometimes God can and will use trials in our lives so that we seek Him. So that we will grow closer to Him.
We need God. God does not need us. Yet, He is the one who does the nudging. He is the one who pursues us irrespective of our current circumstances. He does this for our benefit, not His. If you find yourself in the throes of a terribly difficult battle, absorb this:
— We live in a fallen world rife with sin and death. Trying times should be expected due to this fact.
— If God has allowed for you to face an especially-tough challenge, He will use it to teach you.
— If God has allowed for you to face an especially-tough challenge, He will use it to bring you closer to Him, provided that you, through prayer, run to His feet and rely on His love and wisdom. The Lord knows us, knows our struggles, and will carry us through them each and every time so long as we come to Him in humility. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 4:7).
How About You?
The Lord knows you — but do you personally know the Lord? That is the lone qualifier within all of this. Many, many people claim belief in Christ, but they do not know Him. As it says in James 2:19, “even the demons believe — and tremble!” It is nice that one might believe God exists and is ruler over all creation, but that type of belief by itself is woefully incomplete and dispassionate. It is, in short, not enough. “Liking” Christian social media posts is not enough, just as professing to believe in God while resisting a committed relationship with Him is, of course, not enough. Those who have been rescued by Christ exhibit such privately as well as publicly. They cannot help it, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is what happens when you connect, and stay connected, with the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. I myself cannot function correctly, not even a little bit, when I attempt on my own power and emotional regulation to rationalize and reconcile both the trivial and serious challenges life seems to present on an ongoing basis. I fall apart, begin “thinking stupid” (a phrase I use regularly), and become pulled in different directions by distractive influences. This eventually manifests in my perspectives and behaviors, that is until I receive, by God’s grace, a course correction — which is availed through genuine, personal prayer and by clinging fast to His Word. Without Jesus, I’m a prideful, volatile mess. With Him, I am made calm, whole, and ready to love hardcore. It is not a complicated process.
And it is also not about punishment. You may notice that even most secularists are familiar with John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” But the very next verse is a reinforcement of that precious declaration — “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” God’s whole deal, basically, is His love is so all-encompassing that He can’t wait to forgive you and bring you into His arms.
This is the first step, fully recognizing that God’s all-powerful love centers around forgiveness, because in order for us to be in His presence we must be made righteous through the blood of Christ. The perfect, Almighty God cannot be in the presence of sin. Sin is an affront to God, and it must be punished. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, was born on earth to take this punishment on our behalf and those who make Him the Lord of their lives receive the free gift of grace that ensures eternal life in His Kingdom. Accepting that we are sinners and need a Savior, and believing that Christ died for our sins and rose again is, make no mistake, the first and most important step. Once this step is taken, the Holy Spirit swoops in and gets to work on changing our hearts to make them more attuned towards God’s desires.
The second step — which again is the work of the Spirit — is to rely on God for all things big and small, but this especially includes trials. When I speak to people who might be wishy-washy regarding Christ or have for whatever reason become hardened, I suggest to them that the Bible is about two topics:
1) how mankind has sinned, is sinful, and is doomed without Jesus, thus rendering the deployment of the Plan for Salvation from Genesis through Revelation. The main point is that God has stretched out His mighty but loving hand to repair the relationship that humanity has broken on account of sin.
2) pain, plenty of pain, and how and why God looks to provide, prepare, and comfort His people to get past it.
If your view of God is that of a raving, tyrannical, hammer-wielding force of vengeance, you don’t know Him, and don’t know His Word. If God were “out to get you”, why would He have sent His Son to wear your sin and bear your punishment? Why would He have intricately and passionately revealed Himself through Scripture?
Why would He be pursuing you right now?
Alas, there is no avoiding pain. It is the most common component of the human experience. But to think that God is disinterested in our pain is peak ignorance. Life on earth is tough and chaotic. We see it everywhere we look. People are suffering. We all hit seasons of suffering, on varying levels. It is one item of which we can be assured, and Jesus knows this infinitely more deeply than anyone else. He knew what lied in store for Him. Christ knew that He would be beaten and tortured to disfigurement prior to hanging (and suffocating) on the cross. Knew all of it in advance. And He likewise knew that His disciples would wind up being persecuted (and executed) in His name afterwards as they spread the Gospel. So He told them this:
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
Those in Christ get to live by this same promise. It applies to all who know and love Him. No other rules are attached. All that is required is looking to the One who knows you, and loves you, more than you will ever fully grasp on this side of eternity. If this is where you’re at in your walk, nothing in life is more valuable. But if not, what is it that for which you are waiting? What is holding you back?
We all relate to pain. You do not need to face it alone. We are not equipped to traverse this journey on our own strength. But we were given Christ, Who gives us hope. His hope is what imparts strength, resolve, and peacefulness. So stop straddling the fence. Stop being stubborn. And stop equating admiration from afar with true belief. In other words, stop being a casual and start being a legit follower. Run towards a relationship with Him. The path to peace can be found in the love of Jesus Christ, who the world did not know but you most certainly can.
Listen to “5PM57: Kamal Bey and David Stepanyan” on Spreaker.
Listen to “5PM56: Rich Carlson and Spencer Woods” on Spreaker.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FIVE POINT MOVE PODCAST
iTunes | Stitcher | Spreaker | Google Play Music
