This is a question I posed to my husband the other day, even though I knew his answer would be "Yes."
There is always a current in the river, the water underneath moving and turning, flowing but without a hint of movement on the surface. This water is like people I know who are peaceful people. Even though life may throw them a curve now and then, even though they are facing great currents and turmoils, they remain peaceful.
Then there are some Christians whom I don't think of as exactly peaceful people. They seem stirred, disturbed, troubled and even in downright crisis.
So the second question I asked my husband was, "If a Christian is not at peace, why is that?" I thought I had a pretty good answer but his was much better than mine:
"So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."
Hebrews 3:19
If we are in turmoil, stirred up, disturbed or troubled as Christians, if we are -- as one person I know says, are "in a real crisis", why is that? I think it is probably because there is something somewhere in our lives that we haven't yet or won't yet trust to the authority of the Lord Jesus. Something we just won't take our hands off of to let Him have it.
In our conversation, I told Glen how there are some chores I will let our grandchildren do. Our granddaughter Emma particularly loves dusting (I think she just loves to play with the duster.) There are some chores, though, that I simply cannot trust them to do because I don't believe they will do them well or the way I want them done. Perhaps that is how we are with the Lord sometimes.
Perhaps when we are in a turmoil over something, it is because we know we should trust the Lord about it, but we don't want to because we don't want Him to have it lest He do it differently than we want it done! We are wrongly afraid of what He might do with our situation.
There have been so many times in my own life when I had an expectation for an outcome, I just knew how it should all play out. I trusted the Lord during the calamity of it, but it didn't play out at all the way I expected. It turned out infinitely better than I could have imagined. The times I didn't trust Him and sought to do things my own way, well. . . I'd just rather not talk about those.
When the Lord Jesus was walking on the water to the disciples in the boat, Peter asked the Lord to bid him to come to Him and the Lord Jesus did so. Peter began to walk on the water. Then his sight shifted from the Lord to the waves, he began to be fearful and to sink. He had to cry out to the Lord again, but this time for the Lord to save him. He went from a man of faith to a man of failure; from a man of seeking to a man of sinking, in a matter of seconds.
"And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matthew 14:31)
"Wherefore didst thou doubt?" When we experience turmoil instead of peace, when worry becomes our pillow, we can ask ourselves the same question. Why do we doubt the One who can walk on water and calm the winds and the waves? Why do we question the wisdom of the One who "telleth the number of the stars...calleth them all by their names," (Psalm 147:4)?
In Revelation 19 the Apostle John said, "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon Him was called Faithful and True... And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." If God the Father has bestowed the names of "Faithful and True," "King of Kings" and "Lord of Lords" upon the Lord Jesus Christ, then there is one thing we can be completely sure of, we can trust Him with absolutely everything in our lives. Be it big or small, long-term or fleeting, He is trustworthy and He will always be so.
Whatever that thing is in our lives that is threatening to rob our peace, whatever is furrowing our brow and wringing our hands, let us give it to Him at last and forever. He can handle our problems with perfect wisdom and infinite understanding and He wants us to know His peace.
"Peace I leave with you,
My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
John 14:27
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