April 16, 2020

Today is Thursday. In this pandemic, with so many people at home and no discernible rhythm to life people are losing track of time. This lack of rhythm to carry us through the week creates emotional pressure and worry. Worry leads to stress. Stress multiplies into anxiety. Anxiety “doubles down” to fear. Once the wave starts rolling, it sweeps us off our feet. Question: is this reasonable? Jesus asked, “Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?” [Matthew 6:27 NLT] 

The Bible has training on how to handle stress! Let’s take a look at one passage and the skill sets it teaches. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” [Philippians 4:6 – 7 NLT]

The first skill is to trust God. The evidence is, we go to God in prayer. I suspect most of our worries, anxieties, and fears trickle down from our inability to trust. Whether we like it or not, much of life is out of our control. When we drive, we trust the other drivers to behave in a reasonable manner. When we go to the bank, we expect the bank to behave in a predictable manner. These reasonable and predictable ways of conducting ourselves translate into trust. When someone or something does not behave as expected, we find trust difficult. When imaginations build a “computer model” and carries us to the “worst case scenario” our anxieties over-ride our faith, our ability to think straight, and our lives.

The next skill is thanksgiving. Some might see this time of isolation as a “bad” thing. Be careful of the labels you use. They are like frames on art work. They detract or draw attention to certain aspects of the work. Thankfulness during this time of isolation looks at life as an opportunity. Life becomes a blank canvas you get to put whatever you want on that canvas… maybe for the first time in your life. If we focus on not being in church, not working, not shopping, not going out with friends; maybe we will miss something. Maybe we will miss the chance to reconnect with our loved ones, learn a new skill, or be creative. Maybe we will miss the chance to connect (or reconnect) with God by reading the Bible. (Please read from a translation that you can easily understand.)

The last skill is being able to fix our minds on what is “excellent and worthy of praise.” In the early days of computers, the expression was “garbage in, garbage out.” Maybe we can flip that and say “excellence and praise worthy in, excellence and praise worthy out.”

This leads to peace, the kind beyond understanding. I doubt peace is like an elusive cat that doesn’t want to be found. Nor is peace like “flat box” furniture. You know the kind, it comes is a box with assorted pieces you have to assemble. Peace is not something we can find, assemble, or create. Notice Paul calls it “God’s peace” and “His peace.” In fact, Jesus said, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” [John 14:27 NLT] True peace is a byproduct of our relationship with Jesus. Peace is a gift of God.