It is astonishing how we ignore what Jesus Christ tells us. He says that the nations will end in war and bloodshed and havoc; we ignore what He says, and when war does come we lose faith in God, we lose our wits and exhibit panic. ...Our Lord teaches us to look things full in the face and He says: "When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be scared." It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared. There is no natural heart of man or woman that is not scared by these things, and the evidence that God's grace is at work amongst us is that we do not get terrified. Our attitude must be: "Father, I do not know what these things mean: it looks like ...distress, but Thou has said, 'Do not be scared,' so I will not be; and Thou has said, 'Let not your heart be troubled,' so I will not let it be; and I stake my confidence in Thee." That is the testimony. Oswald Chambers, "The Discipline of Peril" (ch. 3 of Christian Disciplines, Vol. 1) |
The daily barrage of toxic news continues, of course. The world is one giant nervous wreck at the moment, and this is not going to change any time soon.
I'm not immune from this anxiety, and yet... reading what Oswald says in the passage above, I see that in one sense I should and can be immune to it. To those of us who have come to know the Lord Jesus, He Himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14). This does not mean that we aren't shocked and dismayed at what's going on around us. It means that we have the precious right to take our fear and sorrow to our Father in heaven. Not "don't worry" in the glib sense (oh, just push it out of your mind), but in the way a child is comforted in a loving parent's arms during a thunderstorm.