anxiety
Reason to Believe
By Linda Rex
May 10, 2020, 5th SUNDAY OF EASTER—One of the many difficulties people express their concern about during this time of pandemic is the inability to know who to believe. So much information comes our way nowadays and through so many sources which seem legitimate, that it is difficult to wade our way through them all to ascertain who we should believe and who we should ignore.
Often, I hear from people who have become incensed because of something they read, heard, or saw on social media or in the news. Not everyone considers the source of such news, nor do they remember that often what drives news isn’t the effort to clearly present the facts, but rather to provide readers sensational stories that will grab their attention and move them to pay. There are others who espouse and emphatically proclaim a political or religious position that polarizes people and moves them to respond in the way they desire, even though there is hard evidence to the contrary. Having to be aware of all of this, to not be seduced by false news, is a stressful challenge for everyone.
So, how do we weather all this? How do we find out what is really going on? What if we never get to the bottom of it all and so find ourselves at the mercy of whatever may be happening at the moment? How do we deal with so many unknowns in our lives?
Undergirding so much of our response to what we hear or see is often anxiety, concern, and fear, because most of us are not deeply grounded in a sense that we are loved and are held safely in that love. We tend to gravitate to fear or anger as our natural response to the world around us—this is the self-protect mechanism we rely on to keep us safe in a dangerous world. Any one of us may be influenced by what we see, hear, or read, and find ourselves responding with concern, anxiety, fear, or anger.
This has historically also been our human response to any encounter with the divine. And people today often associate discussion about Jesus with being religious, but do not approach the person of Jesus as though he is anything more than a historical person, a prophet who claimed to be God and who did many great works. We celebrate Christmas for the traditions and the joy, but often not understanding the importance of the baby in the manger.
In many ways we find ourselves blind to the spiritual realities. Are there spiritual realities? If you have not encountered the divine for yourself, you will believe that there are not. But when and if you meet for yourself the Lord Jesus Christ who is very much still alive, you will be unable to escape the reality that the divine and this human existence have intersected and forever are linked in his person.
When faced with his human death, Jesus was concerned for his disciples. He didn’t want them to be fearful or anxious. “Do not let your heart be troubled,” he said. But then he provided the solution to that fear: “…believe in God, believe also in Me.” What we believe about the divine impacts our response to the fear and anxiety we experience in this world. When we are faced with death, with danger, with conflicting stories about what’s really going on, or with differing positions on critical matters, we need to be grounded deeply—and that grounding needs to be in something solid and immoveable.
But all the conflicting stories and transient positions, false and true news meshed together into a collage that is sometimes impossible to decipher, causes us to doubt even the spiritual realities. We need something to believe in—something worth believing in—to hold us fast in the middle of all this. We may simply reject the spiritual realities just because they are not tangible to us—but in doing this, we may miss out on what we need to provide us grounding in the midst of all we are experiencing in the world today.
Jesus comes to us and says to us—believe in God, believe also in me. Why? Because he has something to offer us that no one else can offer us—he is the One who made all things and who joined himself to his creatures, uniting his divine life with our human existence in such a way that we are grounded forever in the Being who is the Creator and Sustainer of all.
When Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he isn’t trying to create conflict between nation groups or to demean any other culture or ethnicity. His purpose is to say that our humanness is intricately bound up with God’s glory because of who Jesus is as God in human flesh. He is the way we interact with God because we now share in his intimate relationship with his heavenly Father in the Spirit—we are centered forever in sacrificial, outflowing love.
This provides a solid base for us to stand on when we are surrounded by and harassed by lies, deceit, confusion, anxiety, and fear. We are everlastingly held in the intimate relation Jesus has with his Father in the Spirit—and so we can know that whatever may happen, we are held. In fearful times, we have no reason to fear, because we are loved and we are held in that love. Not even death will ultimately separate us from God or those we love.
All Jesus asks us for is a response of faith—to believe. Believe what you cannot see, touch, feel, taste or hear. Believe that there is Someone at work behind all this who has your best interests at heart and who is at work in this world bringing about healing, renewal, restoration, and redemption. His purpose isn’t to make us all feel good all the time, but to enable us to participate fully in the oneness and unity of the divine life and love, sharing in it with God and with one another both now and forever.
When we come to see and believe that Jesus is the center of our existence, the life which undergirds us and sustains us, and that we have a Father who holds us safely in the midst of even suffering, evil, and death, we may begin to face life more courageously and at peace. Even though things around us are unsettling or unsure, we may begin to recognize the Spirit’s voice speaking in our hearts, giving us guidance, direction, and a sense of what is true and what is not true. We may begin to have an assurance, by the Spirit, that we are going to be okay, that no matter what happens—good or bad—and no matter whether we figure it all out or not, we will be okay.
We may, the next time we feel fear, anger, anxiety or distress rising in our soul, stop for a moment and reflect on what we believe about God and Jesus his Son. Who are we putting our faith in? Is our faith grounded in what is eternal, loving, and good? Pause and invite Jesus to help you to believe in Abba and in him, no matter what your senses or reason may be telling you at the moment. Ask him to give you the heart and will to trust him. Deeply feel and embrace the peace and sense of the divine presence the Spirit pours into you in response.
Thank you, Father, that we can rest in your fatherly love which holds us safely in the midst of this rapidly changing, confusing world. Thank you, Jesus, for joining us in our broken humanity that we might find healing, wholeness, and renewal in you. Thank you, Spirit of truth, for being the source of all our peace, comfort, and hope, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“‘Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.’ … Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.’ … ‘Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.’” John 14, 1, 6-7, 11 NASB
Walking in a New Way
By Linda Rex
PEACE—I awoke this morning to negative news. Apparently last night the law-abiding citizens of this city were put in danger by the exploits of those who defy the law as our law officers sought to bring them to justice. Then I read that some friends of the family lost a loved one—another loss in my list of recent losses. There are times when it seems like it’s safer to be in bed than out of it.
Seeing and experiencing the evil and pain in this world can really weigh us down. Though I would never want to grow indifferent to suffering and loss, there are times when I wish I could always keep an eternal perspective about such things. It would be nice to be able to only focus on the benefits of such things rather than on the pain and grief they bring with them.
This morning my daughter called up the stairs to let me know her almost grown kitten had found a new toy. She was tossing it around and hiding it under things and playing with it. She was really having fun. But what disturbed my daughter was that it wasn’t her favorite mouse toy—it was the real thing.
There was absolutely nothing evil or bloodthirsty in what the kitten was doing. She was just enjoying her new toy—embracing the joy of play. But the poor mouse, on the other hand—it had an entirely different perspective. It had merely been doing its thing—finding a warm place to hide during the winter—when suddenly, its life was over and it had become an object of delight.
In this instance we can see two completely different perspectives as to what has happened and to what is currently going on in a situation. Perhaps this can help us to understand a little better what it means for us as human beings to live in a world where we are constantly experiencing the results of our human brokenness while at the same time we are participants in the entering of God’s kingdom into this broken world. We may only feel pain, suffering and grief, but we are actually participating in God’s joyful dance of love, grace, and peace.
Loss, separation, pain, evil—these cause suffering, anxiety, fear, and grief, and a host of other feelings and consequences we were not originally intended to experience. We were created for joy, peace, hope, and to share in the love of our heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ in the Spirit. This is the “way of peace” we were created for.
C.S. Lewis, in “The Problem of Pain,” talks about how human beings were created to live in joyful obedience to and full dependency upon God. We were meant to be and were masters of our flesh and our world, as we drew upon God for our life and our strength of will. But we decided in Adam that we would take to ourselves the prerogatives which were solely God’s. We became self-sufficient, self-centered, self-directed. And rather than walking in the garden to commune with our Creator, we walked away from the garden and began to establish for ourselves a new way of being.
The problem is, we chose a way of being which was non-sustainable. We do not have the capacity within ourselves apart from God to properly manage ourselves or our world, much less to live in harmony with one another or to continue our existence. What the incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmastime, means is that God took our plight seriously, took on our humanity, and reformed it in himself. As God in human flesh, Jesus lived a human existence which was fully dependent upon his Abba and completely and joyfully obedient to his Father’s will. He redeemed us, forging for us “a way of peace.”
The enemy of our soul has always sought to destroy us by the incessant lie that we do not need God and we most certainly do not need one another. He deceives us into believing that our human perspective about everything is the true reality—that our experience of what is occurring is what is actually at work in this world. He tells us there is no life beyond this life, or that what we do now does not affect what comes after, or that if we work hard enough and achieve a high enough standard, we’ll receive abundant rewards in the hereafter.
Notice how all these lies we are bombarded with us tell us we are sufficient within ourselves for whatever is needed in every situation. To live in full dependency upon God and in joyful obedience to his will is something contrary to our broken human way of being. We resist this, and seek a multitude of methods to avoid having to surrender to the reality God is God and we are not. And we experience suffering, grief, pain, and sorrow as a result.
Christ has come. He has reconciled all things with God and has brought humanity up into the love and life of the Trinity—by faith we participate with Jesus in his perfect relationship with his Father in the Spirit. As we participate with Jesus, we find ourselves walking in the “way of peace” he forged for us, and we find by the Spirit we have the capacity for self-control, other-centered living, and joyful obedience to God we would not otherwise have.
In Christ, we are new creatures—experiencing a new way of being—Christ in us, the hope of glory. We find as we die with Christ to ourselves and our old way of being that Christ’s new “way of peace” finds greater and greater expression in us and through us. And we begin to experience real peace—peace within ourselves, peace in our relationships and in our communities.
As we turn to God in real dependency upon him in every situation, heeding the Word which tells us to “cast all our cares upon him” (1 Pet. 5:6), we begin to experience that peace “which surpasses understanding” (Phil. 4:6-7). We find a deep joy even in the midst of our sorrow and grief. This is the blessing of the amazing gift of God in his Son Jesus Christ we celebrate during the Advent season.
Abba, thank you for not leaving us in our brokenness and our stubborn resistance to your will. Thank you, Jesus, for forging for us “a way of peace” which we have not known and which we desperately need. Holy Spirit, enable us to turn away from ourselves and to Christ, trusting in his perfect relationship with Abba, and enable us to walk in the “way of peace” we were created for through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,/For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, … To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,/Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. … To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,/To guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:68, 75, 79 NASB
A video of this blog may be accessed here.
The Exception Clause
By Linda Rex
This week has been a busy one and when I am overwhelmed timewise in this way, I find it very easy to slip into unhealthy habits of losing sleep or eating things I wouldn’t, and probably shouldn’t, normally eat. The magical thinking begins with this one little phrase “just this once won’t hurt.”
If I was honest, I would have to say this magical phrase too often governs such decisions. For the most part, “just this once” isn’t a bad thing. Really, such impromptu delights bring joy to our lives. We can take pleasure in the here and again treasures we encounter in our daily life—and I believe God meant us to. Life was meant to be filled with such moments of delight in the presence of Abba.
However, when such pleasures begin to govern our decision-making and begin to rule our thoughts and passions, we find ourselves in the midst of what the apostle John calls the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” This is why he says we are not to love the world or the things in the world—it is very easy to become enslaved to anything we put in the place in our hearts, minds, and lives which was meant for God alone.
God is so emphatic or passionate about this because he knows this is not what we were created for. The things we lust after or become addicted to do not fill up the empty place in our hearts and lives we attempt to use them to fill. They may temporarily numb the pain we are experiencing or dull the anxiety we may be feeling, but ultimately, they do not resolve the real issues we need to face and in which we need to experience God’s healing or help.
Our momentary personal pursuit of happiness often actually derails our experience of true joy. In dulling or avoiding the pain, anxiety, or anger we feel, we may lose opportunities to deeply engage God (or others) in some serious one-on-one conversations which may resolve long-lasting resentments, false beliefs, or disagreements. In not engaging these negative feelings, we may be missing out on opportunities to experience healing, renewal, forgiveness, and cleansing—all of which are paths to true joy in the presence of Jesus.
Sometimes I think our culture encourages two extremes with regards to this. On the one hand, we are willing to put people on national television so everyone can see and talk about their messed up thinking and messed up lives. On the other hand, there are people who end up going on a shooting rampage because they’ve never gotten proper help with or healing for their mental and emotional struggles—often we hear no one even knew or cared they were struggling.
In this culture which celebrates indulging our pleasures and passions, we can find it difficult to pursue true joy in our life with Christ. We can be derailed in so many ways, not realizing we’re bound up in unhealthy ways of living or being until we are caught and find it’s not so easy to get out. And the solution isn’t always just as simple as “repent and believe”. It may require something more—relationship. It may require getting up-close and personal with someone about our struggles, failures and pain. And this we avoid.
When God calls us by his grace into relationship with himself, he places us by his Spirit into the Body of Christ. He joins us with other believers. He means for us to live in spiritual community and not to isolate ourselves. He wants us to experience the true joy we were created for, and he know this can only be found within the context of faithful, loving relationship, specifically as children held together within the inner relations of Father, Son, and Spirit.
God does not intend for any of us to have to go through life wounded, broken, and forsaken. He does not mean life to be a depressing, empty struggle. Yes, life will be tough and bad things will happen, but when we engage such a life from within the context of loving, committed relationship with God and our spiritual community, it becomes bearable and even joyful. We may find in the middle of our struggles we experience a deep, inner joy—not because of our human attempts at medicating our pain, but due to Christ indwelling our hearts by the Holy Spirit and us experiencing loving relationships with others within our spiritual community.
As a classic avoider, I have learned there comes a time when the price we pay for avoiding our issues becomes much higher than what it would cost for us to face up to our issues and deal with them. There comes a time when we need to embrace the truth and speak the truth in love or get professional help for our issues. At some point we need to delve into the unpleasant, slicing the festering sore open again so the accumulated pus can be removed and the wound cleansed—this may be what is needed to let real healing start. And this may require professional help, or it may only require healthy the intervention of Christ by his Holy Spirit within the context of spiritual community.
At other times, though, we may just need to experience the little joys of life. The “exception clause” may actually apply in these cases. God sometimes places these little moments of joy in front of us and means for us to experience little tastes of heaven to increase our anticipation of what is to come when we are truly living as glorified humans in the presence of Abba forever. He reminds us in this way of his affection for us and of his faithful love and grace, drawing from us the gratitude and praise he deserves to receive in response.
All the things we attach ourselves to in this life and believe are necessary for our fulfillment and pleasure must be seen within the context of eternity. Some are just passing pleasures which will one day be supplanted by the genuine eternal pleasures of life in Christ.
True lasting joy may be found in what will endure beyond this life on into the next—giving to, sharing with, serving, helping, forgiving, and loving others. Notice these are all ways in which we pour out from ourselves and into others, and in which we receive from others what they have to give. This is the divine perichoretic life—and this is what we were created to participate in forever. In this life, there are no exceptions—there will be no “just this once”, but an eternal participation in the life and love of Abba, Jesus, and the Spirit which is filled with joy and peace, and all God’s blessings through Jesus our Lord.
Thank you, Abba, for all your good gifts and for sharing with us the life you share with your Son and your Spirit. Grant us the grace to face up to the truth as we need to and to get the help which may be required for us to get well and stay healthy. Enable us to find, experience, and live in the true joy you created us for—pour into us your joy, for all our springs of joy are found in you. May we celebrate now and forever, in perfect joy, the gift of eternal life with you, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.” Psalm 51:12 NLT
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17 NKJ
An Anxious Heart
by Linda Rex
I’ve notice in the past few weeks as I have been making a transition in my life there is sometimes a sense of underlying anxiety in my heart. This creeps in here and there as I am facing the changes and decisions which come with the closing of one church and the need to move closer to the other.
It is easy to get caught up in the decision-making and the concerns about what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. And to get caught up in it to the place where I become anxious or worried about what to do next, or whether everything is going to be all right. When I feed this anxiety, it can get to the place where I’m afraid it is all going to fall apart and I’m going to be left destitute and on the streets. This isn’t healthy.
This anxiety never presumes God isn’t there in the midst of my problems. But I do believe there is a subtle unbelief which drives it, which says, “I know God is love and all that, but he doesn’t really care about these little details in my life.” It questions God’s heart—does he really love me? Does he really care that I am struggling or that things are getting hard for me? Does he know and understand my heart and my feelings?
We are instructed in the Word of God to take all our anxieties to God and to rest in him. Peter, who wrote this passage, instructs us at the same time to be on our guard, for the evil one seeks out the weak and the stragglers, hoping to find someone to prey upon. This is why it is so dangerous to feed our anxieties rather than casting them upon God.
Focusing on our anxieties rather than turning them over to God keeps us in that place of unbelief where Satan would like us to stay. Staying in unbelief, in not trusting God to care for us and to love us, in believing God’s heart is evil and not good toward us, opens the door for Satan to go to work in our hearts and lives, twisting us into tighter and tighter knots of anxiety, despair and unbelief. We can even get to the place where we stop trusting in God at all because we no longer see God for who he really is, the God who loves us and wants what’s best for us.
The thing is, we sometimes expect God to be a person who only does fun, happy things in our lives. We figure if he’s a good God, then he never allows bad things to happen. Our God-concepts are a little immature, I believe. At least, I find mine often are. I want a god who does everything I want him to do when and how I want it done. And that’s not Who the Triune God is. He is not my flunky who waits on me hand and foot and gives me everything I want when I want it. And my carnal humanity doesn’t like that.
The writers of the New Testament over and over remind us there will be suffering in this life, especially for those who choose to follow Christ. Bad things will and do happen. Life can be quite difficult and painful at times. But none of these things alter Who God is. And none of these things alter God’s love and care for us in the midst of what we are going through in our lives.
What these struggles and difficulties in our life provide are opportunities to trust God. These are opportunities to once again believe the truth about Who God is and how much he loves and cares for us. These are opportunities as we trust and walk with Christ by the Spirit through them for God to form Christ in us, to transform our hearts by faith. These struggles and difficulties become opportunities for God to be glorified by healing, restoring, renewing, or just sustaining us in the midst of them. God loves us through our struggles and pain.
I think this is why Satan looks for people to prey upon when they are at their lowest. He knows when we trust God in the midst of difficulty, struggles, and pain our relationship with God deepens. We end up closer to God than when we began. And we grow in our Christ-likeness. And those are the things the evil one seeks to destroy—relationship, community, love, and the restoration of humanity in the image of God in which he was made.
So as anxiety is creeping around the corners of my mind and heart, I keep turning to Christ. He is the one who holds in my place, and in yours, the perfected peace and trust we need in the midst of all these things which are happening in our lives. We can cast all our anxiety upon God, because God in Christ came and shared in our humanity, and knows and understands all we are going through. God knows our hearts and cares for us. His heart toward us is good.
As we turn to Christ in the midst of all we are going through, God works to perfect us, to restore our true humanity, to strengthen us and plant us with a firm foundation in Jesus Christ. God draws us closer and closer to himself into deeper relationship with him.
And God also works in community to strengthen and help us. God places us within a spiritual community, the body of Christ, so there are others to come alongside and help us through our difficulties, whether through prayer, support, encouragement, or physical help.
One of the greatest blessings for me has been the gift of a new family here in middle Tennessee through the churches I have been blessed to pastor. I am comforted by those who pray for me and my family. And I am encouraged by all those who have offered physical help and support. This reflects the Triune life and love in our humanity, and demonstrates God’s unconditional love in tangible ways in my life. And this also helps to ease the anxiety which is a natural part of our human response to change.
It is good we are learning how to show love to one another in healthier and more tangible ways as the body of Christ. It is through this loving one another in the midst of difficult times we demonstrate the love of God, and enable others to experience a taste of the Triune life and love. May we continue to grow in Christ by the Spirit so others can experience God’s love and grace more and more as time g
oes on.
Abba, thank you for your gracious love and grace. Thank you we can turn to you in all our anxiety and distress, and you care for us and lift us up. Grant us the grace to turn to you and to trust you in the midst of every difficulty, struggle and joy, and to provide support and love to one another as well. We give you praise and thanksgiving for your faithful and abundant love, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:6–10 NASB
Wilderness Wanderings
By Linda Rex
Ash Wednesday/Lent: Yesterday I was reading about Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness (from which the forty days of Lent is drawn), and it occurred to me that each of us comes to times in our lives where we live in wilderness places. There may appear to be wild animals who might devour us at any minute, and we may feel the intense hunger which comes from not having our needs met in the way we expect them to be met. We may wander about in our sins or our sorrows, aching because there seems to be no relief in sight.
Many times our wilderness experiences are as a result of our wandering off the path God places before us. We may have made foolish decisions, or been in unwise, unhealthy relationships that have taken us places we never meant to go. We may be dealing with the consequences of things other people have done to us, and we’re not sure we’ll ever get over what happened.
And oftentimes, this is when the tempter shows up. He’s happy to keep us in these miserable places, or to even help us get even more lost and despairing than we already are.
Being in the real wilderness is a thrilling and invigorating experience for me. I love being out in nature in this way. One can feel very close to God out in an open field with the big blue sky over her and the beauty of creation all around. The silence, the sun shining down, the wind blowing through the trees and the grass, all make you feel the presence of God and his glory and greatness.
Yes, there is some concern for me regarding rattlesnakes and mountain lions, but I realize that one must go prepared, and one must be careful. But I’m sure if I was out there for 40 days with no supplies, I imagine I would be quite hungry, and things would indeed look pretty bleak toward the end. I would genuinely be set up for the right person to suggest I do something to help myself have something to eat.
Isn’t it interesting that Satan suggested Jesus turn stones into bread, but when Jesus fed the thousands bread, he didn’t use stones. He just took what he had—a few loaves, and multiplied them. He didn’t need to do an ostentatious miracle in order to help people. And he refused to do one to help himself.
In each of the three temptations put before Christ, he was asked to do two things: 1) to question the love and character of the Father, and to presume upon it; and 2) to renege on his covenant relationship with humanity and his calling by the Spirit to walk in penitence with us—sharing Israel’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and sharing our wilderness journeys as well—by walking in repentance and faith with us and for us.
When we are walking in a spiritual, mental, emotional wilderness, where it seems we have been abandoned by God and everyone else, we will find ourselves assaulted in similar ways. Often times the struggles we have and the things we are wrestling with cause us to question the love and character of God. Does he see and does he really care? How can he leave us like this if he really, truly loves us?
“Why?” is a really good question and often haunts us. And we can often entertain the idea that it would be better to be rescued from our struggles immediately than to walk in faith and trust in reliance upon our covenant relationship with the Father, through Jesus and in the Spirit.
We are tempted to take matters into our own hands and come up with our own solution to the problem instead of waiting on God. We may see good reason to make a little agreement with the devil through compromise or embellishing the truth rather than being willing to do the hard work of integrity, transparency and authenticity. Or we may cast ourselves headlong down an unwise path “trusting” that God will uphold us because that’s what he’s supposed to do.
What we can forget in the midst of our wilderness wanderings is that we are not alone. God is present with us and in us. And he cares about everything that is going on in our lives. He feels our pain. He shares our sorrows. His love for us is not altered by the circumstances in our lives.
Our wilderness wanderings are the perfect opportunity for us to go deeper with God. We can begin to learn a deeper trust in the faithfulness of God. And we can grow in greater spiritual maturity as we learn to wait on God and give him space to do the things that only he can do. We can grow in our sensitivity to the Spirit and to his small, still voice guiding us, encouraging us and teaching us. We can learn true obedience to the Spirit and the Word of God as he leads us along the broken pathways of our lives.
The Spirit had a reason for leading, even throwing, Jesus out into the wilderness. God wasn’t planning to abandon Jesus out there. He didn’t go anywhere. Jesus learned obedience by the things which he suffered (Heb 5:8)—and so will we, as we turn to God in the midst of our struggles and trials and begin to see with the eyes of faith, not the blind eyes of fear, anxiety, guilt and shame.
It was after the wilderness struggles and his determination to be faithful to his Father and to keep his identification with all of us, that the angels came and ministered to Jesus. God the Father responded in compassion and understanding, and relieved Jesus’ hardships after the testing was over. We may have to wander in the wilderness for a while, and we may have some tough decisions to make, and some dangerous temptations to resist, but when all is done, God will be sure to mend, heal and comfort in every way that is needed.
Following Christ doesn’t mean everything in our lives will always be wonderful. Yes, we will experience an abundant life we have never experienced before, but it will be in terms of our relationship with God and our relationships with others. When it comes to loving and being loved by God and others, the beauty of true communion is unsurpassed.
But sometimes the Spirit calls us out into the wilderness because he has something he wants to do in us and in our lives. We may not enjoy every facet of the experience, but when we turn to Christ and go deeper in our relationship with God in the midst of it, we will come out as Jesus did, filled with the Spirit and empowered for greater ministry. Drink in of the wonder of God as you wander about—he is faithful and will bring it all to a good end.
Heavenly Father, thank you for your faithful love. Thank you that even when your Spirit leads us into a time of testing and trial, you are with us in the midst of it, and through Jesus you share in it with us. Thank you for bringing us safely to the other side as we trust in you, and allow you to hold on to us and carry us through. May all our wilderness wanderings draw us closer to you, open new reservoirs for the Spirit and make us more aware of Christ in us, who is our hope of glory. In his name, we pray. Amen.
“Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Mark 1:12–13 NASB (See also Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13)
Our Life in the Trinity 