by: Cris Corzine-McCloskey
Did everyone have a good Labor Day? I don’t care what Holiday I’m celebrating; if it involves a three-day weekend, I’m down with it. I know this has been a strange year for holidays with all the facemasks and fear. The stranger this year gets, the more I feel Jesus telling me to come to Him, and He will give me rest. Not just a rest from work, like a three-day weekend, but rest from all the anxiety the world is dishing out right now.
There’s a passage in Isaiah that says God will keep us in “perfect peace” when we keep our mind on Him because we trust in Him. It doesn’t take more than a cursory glance out there to see perfect peace, or any kind of peace is becoming a scarce resource. And trusting God is in even shorter supply.
Personally, I am sensing God pulling me away from the world’s drama. When I deactivated all my social media, I finally understood that Facebook and the news hadn’t been stealing my peace; I had been giving it away! And in doing so, I was giving away the most precious thing I had.
Jesus said He has given us peace, but in the world, there would be trouble. He also said when we abide in Him, we abide in peace. Abiding means to dwell in or make our home in something. Most of us are abiding in the problems of the world right now. If you are abiding in the world, you are in a state of chaos.
Bill Johnson, the pastor of Bethel Church, said if we are getting more information from Facebook and the news than we are from God’s Word, we are responsible for discouraging ourselves. Truer words have never been spoken!
This is what the Bible says, ” Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
The Bible, which we believers claim we accept as truth, tells us not to be anxious and to fix our eyes on whatever is true, pure, excellent, and praiseworthy. If you can find one thing that fits this criterion on the news or social media, I will eat my shoes! But for some reason, we have a hard time looking away from the insanity and fixing our eyes on Jesus.
This is probably the third article I’ve written on peace since the beginning of COVID. I am risking being repetitive because mental health problems are skyrocketing. People are in a state of panic. And while the Dr.’s offices are writing a record number of anti-anxiety prescriptions, I am trying to give you God’s prescription for peace. You can take it as often as you like, and there are no harmful side effects.
Envision yourself in a lifeboat, amid a raging sea of chaos. There is only so much room in a lifeboat. If it’s not going to help you survive the storm, pitch it overboard! National News, Facebook, Twitter, negative friends, scary talk-shows, all of it. Seriously, if it’s causing anxiety, dump it from your life, and fix your eyes on the one who calms the storm. That’s your prescription for peace.
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