Anxiety
With three more months left to complete this fast, closing year, we have commenced the third to last month. Today, being the first Sunday in this month, I have been collectively and personally challenged with rising trials, troubles and anxieties, which seem to fall from nowhere and take recognition and prominent positions, in some heart-rending ways.
Don’t get me wrong. Things which cause stress, worry, anxiety, fears and much more are always present. Sometimes they lie low for a short while, but they are as alive and working as is any good thing.
This past month and resolutely marching into this new month as well, are unprecedented anxieties, which have personally plagued relatives, friends, neighbours and many of you. You have not been exempt from some very rough, drowning waters; fierce, vicious, crashing winds and consuming fires of doubts and hopelessness, which burn all hope to ashes.
Many of us, in the vessel of life, being tossed and battered violently and mercilessly by the raging storm, have begun to feel as though there is no hope of being saved from our present life storms. We feel like the apostle Paul, in one of these experiences, when he writes this. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. Acts 27: 20. O yes my friends, there are definitely times, when we have come to the end of all hope of being helped out of a situation or through a situation.
Nevertheless, even when these times come and we are at our wit's end, we can still turn our eyes, however they may be, to God. Believer, such times are real and they do come without fear or favour. Because you are experiencing such a time, or someone you know is experiencing such darkness, battering and anxiety, do not judge yourself hastily or irrationally. Do not think this is happening because God has dismissed you. O no! Paul was a giant of a servant, well-pleasing to our Lord, and yet he experienced such a time of giving up on all hope of him and the others in that battered vessel, being saved.
No such time is pleasant, but we learn from this same servant of God about being anxious.
This week, we shall be spending our time listening again to some very well-known and often used words of Paul, concerning worry.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God: and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 6 – 7.
It will be brought to us as a declaration notice. It is for all who are at this time, being held captive by anxiety and who feel truly helpless, hopeless and utterly defeated.
Even though times may be going smoothly for some of you at the moment, know that rough times can happen at any time, without warning or announcement. This week’s offerings are good for you too.
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