Be still and know that I am God.
It’s a verse from Psalm 46 that’s on a thousand plaques. But we get its meaning totally wrong. Discovering the right meaning, though, leads us to great encouragement.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
What happens when depression or anxiety strikes people who love the Lord?
The body of Christ should be the greatest place to get help, but there’s a problem. To begin with, for anyone, Christian or not, there’s more shame associated with emotional issues than there is with physical sickness, because mental health issues seem to reflect on our worth and value more than physical illness does.
But what makes it really hard for Christians to ask for help is the fear that, in addition to this, people will also question the reality of our faith or our walk with the Lord. And so we hide. And it gets worse.
It was very early on a wintry Saturday morning about three years ago. I had set off for an event I was speaking at. I had driven for about twenty minutes without passing a single vehicle.
Often I use time alone in the car to pray. As I was praying, and without any warning, I heard a voice speaking to me. The words were clear as crystal: “Danger ahead, slow down.” If it wasn’t audible to my ears, it was sharply audible to my spirit.
I have learned not to analyze words God speaks. If you analyze, you place your own reasoning above God’s, and you’ll miss it. My instant mental reaction was to question. After all, with no one out and a clear road, what could the danger be? But I obeyed.
Sometimes you have to throw caution to the winds and just step out in faith. That was a topic of conversation the other day between a successful young church planter in Toronto and myself.
One of the enemy’s cleverest tricks is to keep our focus on what we can achieve by our own efforts.
I was taught a lot about faith as a young leader. The example of several men I personally knew who had taken extraordinary steps of faith in their walk with God took hold of me and challenged me to the core.
We can do a lot by our own efforts, but the kingdom will only really move ahead when we start doing what can only be accomplished by divine intervention.
I had to construct a resume - a “curriculum vitae” in more official terms. It’s been a very long time since my last one! But the institution for which I am teaching this summer required it.
To be honest, my resume writing skills were so rusty I had to borrow one from a colleague to use as a template. As I read all his impressive achievements, I began to wonder how mine would stack up. Not very well, at least in the academic context.
The word curriculum in Latin means a race. Vita means life. So a curriculum vitae means literally the race of life.
