John 14:1 (ESV) “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Let not your hearts be troubled, let not your hearts be troubled, let not your hearts be troubled. I’m leaving this repetition in to show how God has taught me to press his word deep into soul. I don’t know why it helps, but it does cause the text to come alive in me when I repeat phrases as I do above. The following reflection began to flow after that meditation.
How much help have we forfeited because we have not listened intently that we might receive the full force that Jesus intended for all his people through this simple phrase. When the person who assures you not to worry happens to be the world’s greatest expert in that specific category, then that would be good reason not to worry. Jesus is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He not only is more wise and more intelligent than anyone who has ever lived. He is infinite in his wisdom and infinite in his intelligence. He is infinite in his knowledge. When he says, “let not your hearts be troubled,” that’s good reason to be at peace. You don’t have to wonder if there’s something he doesn’t know about. If I say to you, “let not your heart be troubled,” then you could rightly say, but you don’t understand, you don’t know about this turmoil in my soul that I wouldn’t even know how to describe to you. You might be right about your assessment of my ability to understand. Perhaps, I nor any other human being will ever be able to fully enter the depths of your grief and anxiety and pain. But you cannot say that of Jesus.
As an aside, I think it’s a lie Satan uses to keep us looked up in cycles of anxiety and dis-ease when we think that “no one can understand me; my problem is unique. My challenges are harder than what other people face. I am an unusual case.” With all gentleness I am prompted to say, that way of thinking, when we think like that, is a form of pride that represents a lack of trust in God. If you say that, you are saying you are beyond God’s help, that God cannot send people into your life who will love you well.
Believe in God; believe in God; believe in God. That’s a direct command. To not do what Jesus says to do here represents sin; is sin. He does not say believe that God exists. That’s actually the condition of every human being, atheist or not. We can’t not know that God exists. That’s not what he means. He means what we mean by trust. Trust God. Trust that in God lies the solution to your heart’s greatest ache. This simple command represents the whole ballgame. If we trust God, then we will know for instance that the way to enhance that trust means trusting what he says when he says, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” We will not believe that something else matters more to our well-being than gathering with God’s people for worship every Sunday. We will not think that something else would matter more than upending our life so that no matter what else happens, we will give time to hearing, reading, meditating, and studying God’s word. The path to our hearts not being troubled is real time active trust in God. And the path to greater faith, greater belief, greater trust in God, comes through fierce intake of the word of God into our souls.
As I Follow 