I did not know I was hungry ∙

I did not know I was hungry ∙

He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. – Deuteronomy 8:16

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.

 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

The story is about a cocoon, a butterfly, and a young boy. One day, a small opening appeared in a cocoon, through which a butterfly would soon appear. A boy stopped and watched how the butterfly struggled to get out of the cocoon. The butterfly was exerting much effort, but the gap was not widening. The boy thought that perhaps the butterfly was not strong enough to break through.

The boy made a fateful decision to “help” the butterfly. The boy used a small knife and cut a larger opening in the cocoon. The butterfly was able to emerge without much additional effort. But it appeared scrawny and feeble. It could barely move its crinkled wings.

The boy watched, hoping the butterfly would spread its wings and fly. But that never happened. The butterfly would live out its existence frail and grounded.

For the rest of its now drastically shortened life, the butterfly would have to drag its weak body and useless, crinkled wings. It was unable to fly. The boy did not realize that the effort required to spread the narrow gap of the cocoon was necessary for the butterfly. The energy expended would pump life-giving fluid from the body to the butterfly’s wings, enabling them to expand and allow the butterfly to fly. Butterflies and cocoons were designed so that it takes much effort for butterflies to emerge from their cocoons. This makes them strong and vibrant. It is part of the Father’s design for them.

If we were allowed to live without encountering and overcoming difficulties, we would not grow and develop, become stronger, and reach our full potential. The Father puts challenges into our lives to strengthen us, not destroy us.

Life is filled with challenges. Sometimes the Father leads us into extended periods of time that are barren, difficult, and seemingly without end or purpose. But the Father never does anything without a plan, well thought out, and with specific goals in mind.

When we experience such times in the wilderness, the best question is not “why?” but rather, “Father, what do You want me to learn from this?”

These tests focus our trust in the Father and His ability, faithfulness, and willingness to provide for us. It provides answers to questions that often go unspoken. Will He meet our needs? Is He as good as we think He is?

We are spiritual beings and we cannot exist on material nourishment alone. We are spiritually hungry, but we do not know it. We become aware of our spiritual hunger through the trials we face.

Deuteronomy 8:3 He humbled you and let you be hungry . . . that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.

But perhaps of no lesser importance, we discover ourselves. We learn what is truly in our hearts. What kind of stuff are we really made of? Are we willing to discover the Father’s purpose and goals, cast aside our selfishness and fears, and obey Him at all costs?

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This phrase has become a popular expression in American culture. It owes its origin to American football. The phrase was coined in 1953 in a speech made by John Thomas, the coach of the Green Hornets football team.

What is not important is how we begin our wilderness journey; what is essential is how we finish it.

REFLECT & PRAY

Who am I really? What am I willing to commit to endure for my King, my Father? Our walk with Him is ultimately not about us and our human frailty but rather about Him and His marvelous strength.

Father as I look back over my life, I see how many times You have been there for me. I thought I was totally alone, but You were there. When I was weak, You became my strength. You coached me and taught me how to live. You showed me that inner strength and sustenance come through the Word of God! Encourage me to finish the journey I began.

INSIGHT

The Father uses the wilderness to test our character. The wilderness reveals our hearts. Our true character is demonstrated through obedience or the lack thereof.

The wilderness experience was not the end of the journey. It was only the beginning of the journey. Its rigors are developmental. They prepare people to engage in the real battle that lies ahead. Success in the land of promise depends on prior success in the wilderness.

Lush, abundant, natural provision was on the horizon. The Father’s supernatural provision in the barren desert is preparation for what is to come.

How do you teach someone to handle wealth and abundance? The Father’s method is through scarcity and learning to trust Him and Him alone.

Deuteronomy 8:5-17

 5 Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the LORD your God disciplines you for your own good.

 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills.

 9 It is a land where food is plentiful, and nothing is lacking.

 10 When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.

 11 But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the LORD your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today.

 14 Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.

 17 He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’

“Challenges are what makes life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” (Joshua J. Marine).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 6-21-2

© Dr. H 2022

Disrupting death ∙

Disrupting death ∙

Our Lord Jesus Christ, He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light . . .. 1 Timothy 6:14-16

1 Corinthians 15:52-54

 52 It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.

 53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

 54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Extending life and postponing or avoiding death has been a longing of the human race for millennia.

Throughout the ages, those with great wealth and power built elaborate tombs to make this wish a possible reality. Consider the pyramids of ancient Egypt, the immense underground tomb of China’s first emperor Qin (circa 210 BC), with legions of terra-cotta warriors to guard him in the afterlife, and the incredible and elaborate tombs of the Maya, circa 700 AD.

Modern computer technologies are making it possible for a version of this desire to be more or less realized. Digital data can now potentially be used to extend our existence using virtual reality, robots, chatbots, and holograms.

The article, “Disrupting death: Could we really live forever in digital form?” was published on May 29, 2020, by Alison DeNisco Rayome on CNET.com.

In 2016, Jang Ji-sung’s young daughter Nayeon died from a blood-related disease. But in February, the South Korean mother was reunited with her daughter in virtual reality. Experts constructed a version of her child using motion capture technology for a documentary. Wearing a VR headset and haptic gloves, Jang could walk, talk and play with this digital version of her daughter.

“Maybe it’s a real paradise,” Jang said of the moment the two met in VR. “I met Nayeon, who called me with a smile for a very short time, but it’s a very happy time. I think I’ve had the dream I’ve always wanted.”

Once primarily the concern of science fiction, more people are now interested in immortality. Perhaps we could take the form of keeping our body or mind alive forever. We might create a living memorial, like an AI-based robot or chatbot version of ourselves or our loved ones.

The question remains: Where can we get the data to fully digitize people? Kuyda asks. “We can deepfake a person and create some nascent technology that works – like a 3D avatar – and model a video of the person,” she added. “But what about the mind? There’s nothing that can capture our minds right now.”

In the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University in Japan, director Hiroshi Ishiguro has built more than 30 lifelike androids – including a robotic version of himself. He has pioneered a research field on human-robot interactions, studying the importance of subtle eye movements and facial expressions for replicating humans.

“My basic purpose is to understand what a human is by creating a very human-like robot,” Ishiguro said. “We can improve the algorithm to be more human-like if we can find some of the important features of a human.” Ishiguro has said that if he died, his robot could go on lecturing students in his place. However, it would never really “be” him, he said, or be able to come up with new ideas.

“We cannot transmit our consciousness to robots,” Ishiguro said. “We may share the memories. The robot may say, ‘I’m Hiroshi Ishiguro,’ but still the consciousness is independent.”

“I think in the near future, we’re going to have a brain-machine interface,” Ishiguro said. This will make the boundary between a human and a computer ambiguous because we could share part of a memory with the computer.

The Father spoke to the issue of disrupting death and creating immortality. He already has developed a functional means to make this a reality. It is part of His eternal plan for all His children.

He has the “science,” “technology,” and unlimited creative capacity to make it happen. He has the power of life, resurrection, and immortality within Himself.

John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.

Death will be swallowed up in victory. The dead will be raised imperishable and given immortal bodies. Immortality will be realized for all children of the King (1 Corinthians 15:52-54).

REFLECT & PRAY

The Father God of the Scriptures is unique from all other living entities. He alone is eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He alone is the Creator; all else is a creation. He is the Creator of all that exists, life, eternal life, and time itself. He has no limitations and no boundaries.

Father thank You for making the reality of life and the certainty of immortal life the welcome and confident hope of each child of the King.

INSIGHT

As science advances, people may create lifelike human replicants, but they will only be replicants. They may create “sentient” beings with neural nets capable of growing and developing, such as Data of Star Trek fame.

But that is not the same as creating a living or immortal beings.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are eternal and have always existed. All else is a creation: energy, matter, the cosmos, angelic life, and human life.

1 Timothy 6:14-16 Our Lord Jesus Christ, He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light . . .

1 Timothy 1:17 All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.

Paul designated God as “the King eternal,” a phrase that picks up on the theme of eternal life in John 11:25 I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. The term denotes God as the ruler of all ages from creation and pictures Him as literally the King of the ages. Second, He described God as “immortal” or immune from decay and corruption. . . Finally, He presented God as the “only” God, an adjective that insists that God has no competitors. God is unique, incomparable, and glorious (Lea and Griffin).

The Father God is worthy of honor, praise, esteem, and reverence because He is unique in His excellence. He alone has the majesty and power to create life, matter, and energy. He alone is capable of transforming mortal life into immortal life.

For modern science, immortality is a sought-after dream. For a child of the King, it is an unavoidable reality. Each of us will have an immortal body as the abode of our individual, immaterial essence, and personality: mind, spirit, and will.

We will be capable of learning, having new thoughts, and continual transformation, growing and becoming more like our Father throughout all eternity.

We will not be replicants; we will be ourselves forever.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 5-31-2

© Dr. H 2022

Who are the grasshoppers?

Who are the grasshoppers?

Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. – Numbers 14:1

Numbers 13:2-33

 2 Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve tribes.

 25 After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned

 27 This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country – a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces.”

 28 “But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified.”

 30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”

 31 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!”

 32 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge.”

 33 “We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them, we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”

Webster defines a committee as “A body of persons delegated to consider, investigate, take action on, or report on some matter.” Others have less stellar definitions and comments regarding committees.

“A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary” (Fred Allen).

“A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing and collectively decide nothing can be done” (Wiersbe).

“A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours” (Milton Berle).

“If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it” (Charles Kettering).

“The best committee is made up of 3 people, 2 of whom are dead” (Jess Moody).

“If Columbus had an advisory committee, he would probably still be at the dock” (Arthur Goldberg).

“A camel is a horse designed by committee” (Alec Issigonis).

“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings” (George Will).

The Father told Moses to form a committee of 12 men to investigate the Promised Land and determine its viability. They changed their mission from the investigation of the land to an investigation of the armies and fortifications of Canaan. This was a tragic mistake (Numbers 13:1).

Of the 12 spies, all but 2, Joshua and Caleb, focused on the seemingly overwhelming obstacles they would face when they entered the land of promise. They failed to recognize and believe in the Father’s promise that he had already given them the promised land. By faith, they merely had to take possession of what he had already given them. Instead, they became discouraged.

“Their discouragement quickly spread throughout the camp. Doubt had turned into unbelief, and unbelief is rebellion against God (Numbers 14:9; Hebrews 3:16-19)” (Wiersbe).

They cried out in unbelief, “we are not able” (Numbers 13:31). “Because these ten men were walking by sight, they didn’t really believe God’s promises. They looked at the people of the land and saw giants; they looked at the Canaanite cities and saw high walls and locked gates, and they looked at themselves and saw grasshoppers” (Wiersbe).

Numbers 13:33 We felt like grasshoppers.

Indeed, there were grasshoppers in the land. However, by the Father’s reckoning, it was not the children of Israel who were the grasshoppers. It was the Canaanites.

Isaiah 40:22 God sits above the circle of the earth. The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!

REFLECT & PRAY

“We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems” (John Gardner).

Father help me to see things as You see things. All the machinations of the human race are nothing but a source of laughter and amusement to the Lord God Almighty (Psalms 2:7).

INSIGHT

There were, however, Joshua and Caleb, two men of faith, among the 12 spies. In contrast to the evil report of the 10 faithless spies, they offered a good report, a minority report. How was their report received? At the very least, it was highly unpopular.

Numbers 14:6-10

 6 Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing.

 7 They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land!

 8 And if the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey.

 9 Do not rebel against the LORD, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! Their protection has been removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.”

 10 But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb.

Joshua and Caleb were like NFL quarterbacks after losing a game. They immediately went from the penthouse to the outhouse. The disheartened children of Israel wanted to kill them. But the Father had another plan and stopped them dead in their tracks. From the Father’s point of view, they were not rejecting Joshua and Caleb; they were in open rebellion against Him.

Numbers 14:10-11

 10 Then, the glorious presence of the LORD appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle.

 11 And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them?

The Father had had enough of their faithless criticism and defiance. He told Moses that he was prepared to destroy them on the spot. He would respond with a do-over. He would replace them with the descendants of Moses (Numbers 14:12). Graciously but firmly, Moses interceded on behalf of the children of Israel.

Numbers 14:19 In keeping with your magnificent, unfailing love, please pardon the sins of this people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

The Father granted Moses’ request. Because of their defiant rebellion, they would never enter the land of promise. They would not even be allowed to see it. Their fate was now sealed once and for all. The Father’s words were direct, blunt, and chilling.

Numbers 14:28-30

 28 Now tell them this: ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say.

 29 You will all drop dead in this wilderness! Because you complained against me, every one of you who is twenty years old or older and was included in the registration will die.

 30 You will not enter and occupy the land I swore to give you. The only exceptions will be Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun.

Malachi 1:6 The LORD of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name!

It is a harrowing thing to disrespect the living God!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

© Dr. H 2022

The wonder of calm, gentle self-awareness ∙

The wonder of calm, gentle self-awareness ∙

Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. – Matthew 11:29

Psalms 131:1-2

 1 O LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.

 2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

What is Self-Image?

Self-image concerns how we see ourselves both internally and externally. Self-image is how a person feels about their personality, achievements, and value to society. It includes “the idea, conception, or mental image one has of oneself” (Random House Dictionary).

“Self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a number of self-impressions that have built up over time . . .. These self-images can be very positive, giving a person confidence in their thoughts and actions, or negative, making a person doubtful of their capabilities and ideas” (The Mountain State Centers for Independent Living).

In a nutshell, self-image is essentially what you see in the mirror and how you think of yourself.

Self-concept is a more all-embracing concept than self-image; it involves how you see yourself, how you think about yourself, and how you feel about yourself. Self-image is a component that makes up self-concept (McLeod, 2008).

David has achieved a new inner reality deep within his soul and spirit. He joyfully proclaims what has been accomplished due to his close walk with the Father, the living God. Humility is knowing both your strengths and weaknesses and acknowledging them. He has defeated his inner foes of pride and arrogance. David’s hubris and haughtiness have been vanquished.

The battle had been long and arduous. A new calmness and Father-centered self-confidence have overcome his former sense of excessively lofty self-importance. David has become humble and gentle. His soul is at rest. David reviews the extremely difficult issues that he has overcome, as a result of the transformation the Father has wrought in the inmost core of his being. David had the wonderful and delightful experience of the result of complete submission to the Father. This is something that every child of the King craves deep within their soul.

How can we follow after him? The Lord Jesus Christ has shown us the way.

Matthew 11:28-30

 28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

As we weary of our struggles and experience the dark night of our souls, the Lord Jesus Christ makes a tremendous offer. Because He is humble and gentle and dwells in perfect peace, we too can enter into His rest. We come to Him and throw off our burdens which are heavy. He comes alongside us and offers to be fellow yoked with us. He takes upon Himself the majority of the weight we will carry for the rest of our lives.

REFLECT & PRAY

“It takes humility to admit that some things are bigger than us or just plain beyond us. If the great David could call himself a ‘flea’ and a ‘dead dog’ (1 Samuel 24:14), maybe we have more to learn about humility” (Stanley).

Oh, Father how I long to be totally content and at peace in Your presence. With You by my side, may I learn to be still and quiet my soul and experience the incredible comfort, serenity, and rest You have provided.

INSIGHT

Psalms 131:1 reveals the results of David’s efforts, while Psalms 131:2 chronicles how David achieved the desires of his heart.

David makes a threefold negative declaration; my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty; I do not occupy myself with great matters (NICOT).

Psalms 131:1 O LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.

To unwrap the meaning of this verse, three important questions need to be addressed: what is a proud heart? What are haughty eyes? What are matters that are too great or awesome to grasp?

The Hebrew word translated as heart is leḇ. It connotes the seat of human intelligence and emotions. It has in view the inner man, mind, and will.

Haughty eyes are a figure of speech that refers to arrogance or hubris. Humility is the opposite of haughty eyes. People that are proud look, compare, compete, and are never content. They scheme and strategize so that they can outdo, outperform, or one-up others.

David is free from pride; his heart is not lifted up. He has been released from high-handed, elitist, self-interest. His eyes are not raised too high (UBS). He does not grasp things that are beyond his limits. He does not occupy himself with great matters or wondrous things. The Hebrew word nipflaoṯh translated as wondrous things connotes things that are extraordinarily good or great, that is, wonderful, difficult, or awesome. David has been freed from attempting to understand the mysteries of the universe and the Father’s mighty works. He is no longer pursuing “bigger than life” goals and aspirations (UBS).

Psalms 131:2 I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

David has been able to achieve what most of us would consider virtually impossible. He is calm and at peace. He has quieted himself. He is at rest and all struggles have ceased. It is as though his life is a perpetual Sabbath day without end.

David illustrates his utter contentment using a young child as his model. When a child is finished nursing and is weaned, it rests content at its mother’s side, no longer clamoring for the breast. In the same way, David, “weaned of his ambitions, rests content to be at the side of his God” (Leupold). The Hebrew word translated as wean is gamal. A child is weaned when it no longer needs to be nursed by its mother.

“The figure is graceful, touching, original, and beautifully expressive of the humility of the soul, chastened by disappointment. It expresses both the cost at which he gained rest, for the child is not weaned without much pain and strife, and also the purity and unselfishness of the rest gained as the weaned child when its first fretfulness and uneasiness are past, no longer cries and frets and longs for the breast. “But, lies still and is content because it is with its mother; so my soul weaned from all discontented thoughts, from all fretful desires for earthy good, waiting in stillness upon God, finding its satisfaction in His presence, resting peacefully in His arms” (Perowne).

“Just as a weaned child is content simply having his mother’s presence, so the faithful worshiper is content with God’s presence” (ESV notes).

How did David achieve contentment? He stilled and quieted his soul. “He desisted from his former pursuits” (Leupold).

Oh the wonder of quiet contentment with Father God!

Isaiah 30:15 In quietness and confidence is your strength.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

© Dr. H 2022

Guard your heart

Guard your heart

Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. – Proverbs 4:23

Philippians 4:6-7

 6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Modern technology has given rise to criminal fraud, theft, scams, cons, and swindles driven by human avarice and greed. Who has not received suspicious calls (phone phishing) and text messages pretending to be service providers. Many of these impersonate companies such as Amazon, Apple, or even the IRS. Then there is the perpetual catfishing that takes place on dating sites. People pretend to be somebody they’re not, include a photo, and offer a come-on to entrap you. The purpose of the efforts is often to obtain money or, worse, your identity, digital banking username or password, and debit card details or account information via surreptitious intrusions into our personal space.

It is wise to be suspicious and guard yourself against these criminal activities.

More importantly, the Children of the King are advised to guard their hearts.

Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

Why is the heart so important?

Solomon states that from the heart flow the springs of life. The Hebrew word translated as heart is right is lev.  When Solomon speaks of the heart, he is not referring to the physical organ. Instead, the heart represents the locus of a person’s thoughts (mind), volition, emotions, and knowledge of right and wrong (conscience). This term is also used in idioms such as “to set the heart upon,” meaning “to think about,” or “to want” (TWOT).

The Hebrew word translated as flow, springs, sources, or issues is totsaoth. Typically totsaoth refers to the starting point or source, where something begins or springs into being. “The thought expressed here is that what people think, what is in their minds, determines how they will act. . .. a person’s life is somehow determined by the thoughts stored in the heart or mind (UBS). This phrase could be translated as “‘Everything you do comes out of your heart.’ CEV says ‘Carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of true life.’” (UBS).

Essentially Solomon is warning the children of the King to diligently guard their hearts, minds, emotions, and thoughts. This is easy to say but not so easy to do. How often do our thoughts or emotions seem to have a life of their own and take off all by themselves?

When our thoughts and emotions focus on uncertainty and the unknown, they often lead to anxiety and fear. Is there a more excellent way to handle it? Yes indeed! Paul shows the way.

REFLECT & PRAY

“Anxiety wanes and eventually disappears when we take our concerns to the God who has the power and the wisdom to take care of them, believing that He always has our best interests at heart” (Stanley).

Father thank You that the peace of God is not merely the absence of anxiety or conflict. Indeed, it is the tranquility of Your presence in the midst of our circumstances.

INSIGHT

Philippians 4:6-7

 6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Rather than giving in to our uncertainty and anxiety and becoming consumed with fear and dread, we are to pray with heartfelt thankfulness for all that the Father has done. When children of the King respond in this way, the Father guarantees that something extraordinary will happen far beyond our human understanding. Somehow the Father implants His peace in our hearts. We become calm, confident, hopeful, and even buoyant. It is truly amazing to experience the same peace that the Father Himself has. What a remarkable honor and blessing.

Children of the King “are to live without care – but not ‘uncaring’ or ‘careless.’ Jesus invites his followers to live ‘without anxiety’ because their heavenly Father knows and cares for them . . .. Apprehension and fear mark the life of the unbelieving, the untrusting, for whom the present is all there is, and for whom the present is so uncertain – or for many so filled with distress and suffering . . ..” (Fee).

When faced with situations where others worry and fret, children of the King “submit their case to God in prayer, accompanied by thanksgiving.  . .. In so doing, one acknowledges utter dependence on God, while at the same time expressing complete trust in him” (Fee).

When we present our cases before the Father, why is it essential that our petitions are accompanied by thanksgiving? Paul provides the answer throughout his life. In Paul’s way of thinking, the lives of children of the King should be marked by a constant outpouring of gratitude to God. “Thanksgiving is an explicit acknowledgment of creatureliness and dependence, a recognition that everything comes as a gift, the verbalization before God of his goodness and generosity” (Fee).

But there’s more.

The Greek word translated as worry or anxious is merimnao. It has the sense of over-anxiety, anxious care, being troubled, or unduly concerned. In the Greek language, words closely related to merimnao are meris and merizo. They have the sense of dividing or parting. When we worry, we divide our emotions and become fractured and splintered internally.  

The Greek word translated as peace is eirene. Eirene is inner tranquility or rest. Eirene is the opposite of war. It is the freedom from worry. The peace of God originates in and comes from God. What is the relationship between peace and God? It is a peace that comes from God. Indeed, it is the peace caused by God (UBS). Peace in the Scriptures is not merely the absence of strife and trouble. Peace is an inner sense of well-being that derives from the presence of the Father. It is an extraordinary and magnificent gift of God. Worry divides our emotions and fractures us; peace brings our fractured emotions into harmony.

The Father’s peace becomes our guardian, our protector. The peace of God literally takes on the responsibility of guarding our hearts. Nothing can penetrate the protection provided by the father’s peace. As we depend upon Him, we simply entrust our fragile hearts to Him. In the 21st century, we would say that the Father has our backs. In the first century, Paul said that He has our hearts. How magnificent is that?

Paul is echoing The Sermon on the Mount. The Lord Jesus Christ was crystal clear; children of the King are not to be anxious. Instead, they are to entrust themselves into the hands of their loving heavenly Father.

Why did Paul use the word guard? Could it be that Paul recalled his own imprisonment and the Roman guards that watched over him? But rather than strong, determined, well-trained, and fierce Roman soldiers, the Father guards us with His peace.

When we seek the Father and depend upon Him, we are free to entrust our fragile hearts to Him. Oswald Chambers referred to this practice as the art of abandonment. We learn and practice the art of guarding our hearts, not in our own strength, but instead abandoning them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Rather than attempting to handle our confused emotions ourselves, we abandon them to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Peace and joy simply cannot coexist with anxiety, frustration, anger, and bitterness. Anger left unchecked all too frequently results in depression and a desire for revenge.

Philippians 4:13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

© Dr. H 2022