“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”- John 16:33 NKJV
Have you ever been on an adventure with a group of people and while some of them were terrified on the journey, there was one person who seemed to be having the time of his/her life and you just couldn’t fathom how they could be so calm and collected?
This attitude is not far from what we see when Jesus slept like a baby amidst a storm which got His disciples scared in Matthew 8:23-26 and this is the attitude God wants every believer to possess no matter what life throws at you.
Faith prepares us for trials, but does not absolve us from them. Pray against evil, but prepare to handle trials with faith in God. Every believer should live a life of faith that superimposes God’s Word over our experiences.
Now, one good way to do this is to remind yourself of your eternal realities in Christ and the fact that nothing can ever take that away from you- not lack, not death, not sickness, nothing in this world can take it away and the consciousness of this is what your confidence should be hinged on (Romans 5:1-2, Romans 8:35)
Another way to train your heart to be at rest even in chaos is through prayer. Prayer is God’s strategy for soul preservation and one thing we are assured of is that no man goes into the place of prayer and leaves the same.
Jesus, knowing the magnitude of God’s assignment for His life went into the place of prayer to strengthen Himself when He felt weak (Mark 14:35-36) and the outcome was strength to stay the course of God’s will for Him. So, by giving yourself to prayer, you can silence the weight of adversity over your heart and bring to surface the consciousness of God’s presence with and in you.
In training your heart to be at peace, you will also need to keep the Word of God before you and remind yourself of it continually. The Word of God is our manual for living and it is God’s strategy for building the believer as seen in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. By reading God’s Word, you are made aware of your realities in Christ, what God has said concerning you and the assurance of His presence in you at all times (Hebrews 13:4-5, Jeremiah 15:16).
Dear believer, remember that you are not without hope and even in the midst of life’s trials, you can be at peace knowing that God is for you and not against you, confident that no matter what life throws at you, you have a living hope in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah!
Bible Reading Plan: 2 Chronicles 27; Isaiah 9-12