Worry, stress, anxiety, fear; these are words our culture know all too well. Every day we find new things to fret about. We watch the news we worry, the bills come in we stress, someone questions our work and we need a nerve pill. These feelings of dread are nothing new, humans have dealt with them since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God. (Gen. 3:6)
At the moment of that first sin, fear came into the world. Before the sin there was no need for fear because everything was perfect. Sin created a need for consequence and we fear consequence; so started the history of our feelings of dread.
It is strange that we as Christians today still fear and worry and stress when we have so many examples of God taking care of those before us and some in much worse conditions than our own.
We see God deliver the children of Israel from the clutches of an evil Egyptian pharaoh. (Exodus 12–14) He knocks down the city walls of Jericho for them later. (Joshua 5:13-20). God created a clerical error that allowed Corrie Ten Boom to walk out of a Nazi concentration camp a week before all the women her age were executed. It is God’s hand that stopped a woman from killing her unborn child. God, who makes us wake up late so that we are not in the path of a drunk driver. He has done amazing things and is still doing amazing things, so why do we fear?
I have asked myself that question so many times without any answer other than, “consequences”. But God in all His infinite wisdom gave me an answer on one ordinary day in the form of my son screaming at a cartoon movie.
Matthew was watching the movie Megamind, which he had seen so many times before. It came to a part where Megamind, the villain, and Roxanne Ritchie, the damsel, were discussing what should be done about the newest terror of Metro City. Roxanne believes they should go in with guns blazing and save the city! Megamind however is bogged down by the fact that he has always been the bad guy and doesn’t even think to consider that he could be good. He says “I'm the bad guy! I don't save the day, I don't fly off into the sunset, and I don’t get the girl!” Well that was too much for my baby boy to handle, he screamed encouragement to the guy with the big blue head “You do save the day! You do get the girl! You do win! Don’t give up!” I laughed at this and continued with the laundry but after a minute or so it hit me. Megamind didn't know what Matthew knew. If he knew that he would win and all the details of how to get there then he wouldn't have hesitated to go get the bad guy. But he didn't know, and he feared the unknown, just as we do.
Matthew had seen the end and everything that lead to it, so he had full confidence in this character’s abilities. Much like God has seen our lives play out from beginning to end and he knows what steps we need to take next to fulfill the plan he has for us; to get us to our big victory scene. Don’t give up!
We are even one step ahead of Megamind, we know that in the end we will win, if we are faithful to our Lord. He gave us an entire book to let us know what we need to do to get to the “winner’s circle”.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4) Wow! What a wonderful winner’s circle that will be! Don’t give up!
So even though we know the end of the story, we know what we must do to be on the winning side and we know THE ONE who controls it all, are we still going to worry? Probably, but when we stop trying to do it all ourselves, turn our lives completely over to God and let him work it out, we can live fearless and victorious lives. Listen can’t you hear God screaming “You do win! DON’T GIVE UP!!”
“..If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)
