Don't worry about it

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  John 14:1-3

This is such a powerful verse. Jesus was sitting with a messy group of humans, not unlike us, a group of disciples from every walk of like who had just heard what was going to happen. I am pretty sure they were feeling overwhelmed, anxious and likely scared.

It would be easy to read this verse as though I were saying to glibly to myself, “Hey Mona, don’t worry about it.”  But that is not the heart of Jesus. To his distraught friends he said, “I know you are going to see trouble but I am coming to comfort you so you don’t have to worry. Not because things won’t be scary or you won’t feel anxious but because your faith is not in your feelings or circumstances. Your faith is in me and my Father.”

How quickly I forget this when I am in the midst of chaos!

And I love how this verse ends. Jesus says to them and to us that there is something ahead. He said, “What you are going through is right now, in this moment. But remember child, I am making a home for you, far away, and one day you are going to get there but in the meantime I am with you, walking through the valley with you, right now.”

I don’t know about you but I find that incredibly comforting.

So what ever you are going through - I want to encourage you — hear Jesus speaking to you in a gentle way… “ I love you, don’t be troubled, yes the world may be troubling but because I am with you, because your faith is in me, you can walk through a troubled world without a troubled heart. I am preparing a place for you. This is not the end, there is an eternity ahead. This moment will pass and there is so much hope to come!”

Hidden in my heart

I think it’s true that the longer you are with someone the more alike you become. When Brian and I were first married, this guy loved eating weird things, raw oysters, for instance. I would turn away every time he would eat them, making disgusted facial expressions and comments about how what he is eating looks like mucous!  Gross.

Yesterday, Brian and I shared some oysters that he picked up from our local fish monger. It dawned on me that what I once found disgusting, I was now actually enjoying (even though it still looks like mucous!).

The point is that because I love Brian, I want to love what Brian loves. I want to share in what he finds enjoyable. And I learn about the things he loves by spending time with him.

Psalm. 119:11 says,

I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.

The same is true for God. The way I get to know what God loves and what God does not love is by being with God. Spending time in God’s word. I would never want to hurt God. I would never want to sin against God. So, by hiding the word of God in my heart — by meditating on God’s word—I have learnt and continue to learn to love what God loves.

The more of God’s word we tuck into our hearts the more we end up living in alignment with God because we learn to discern… “Oh this leads us on a path that is pleasing to God, and this is the path that leads us away from God.”

The greatest thing we can do is meditate on the Word of God and allow it to be hidden in our heart, and we will find that when there is a moment to compromise; a temptation to take offence; a moment to go down the wrong road, it’s the Word of God (that is hidden in our heart) that will:

• sustain us,

• strengthen us,

• keep us on the right path, and,

• cause us not to sin against God.

I want to remind you today that God loves you, that God is for you. God has sent His word to protect you and to build you up so that you can have a life that flourishes in God!

Everything and all of it

Do you ever feel like you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulder? People are counting on you. You feel the weight of it and there is no one that can help? Well, at times like that I think we need a little reminder:

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it;   - Psalm 241

These are the words of King David, and even as King he realizes that he is not in charge. God is the owner of everything. We live in God’s kingdom where God is on the throne.

David refers to God as “the Lord” and this word Lord can be translated as the self-existent one or the eternal one.

To be self-existent means that no one made God. God existed without us. God does not need us for existence or joy.  And yet God created us out of the overflow of Their love. We exist because of God’s love.  How comforting is that?  To know that the eternal King of the universe made each of us…for love.

God has set His love on you. God has chosen you to be God’s forever.  We belong to God according to this verse.

I will be honest the idea of being “owned’ ruffles my feathers. What if God turns out to be untrustworthy? Yet, that notion quickly passed when I saw that God has been consistently proven to be trustworthy in the pages of scripture .

When you read through the bible and you see the overall meta narrative, you will see a through line of God’s long suffering love and pursuit of his people despite their sin.  God has set his heart on you. God loves you. Do you believe it?

If you don’t, make it your aim to get to know more about who God is.  You can do that by reading through the bible and look for God’s character, personality what God love and what God hates.

What motivates God to do what God does? All that can be found in the pages of scripture.

Where do you mistrust God’s heart today?

Ask God to reveal who God is in the pages of God’s Word.

While Jesus death and resurrection is the most significant evidence of God’s love for you, God delights to show his love for you repeatedly in different ways.

I pray that God will do that for you today. I pray that you will see how God shows up for you today - God knows you, God sees you, God loves you. And in that, there is JOY!

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it;   - Psalm 241

You are not alone. You never have been and you never will be.