It’s always something. We get through one problem, and another pops up. I want to share with you what helps me keep my sanity and stay positive. Please think about all the adversity that you have gone through in life. It has been challenging for most of us, but we are here. We have survived, and we must not go backward. You have made progress in your life. You have overcome obstacles, prayed over problems, and moved forward for God, but now an unwelcome intruder has invaded your life and is threatening your hope and optimism. God wants you to know that your adversary disguised as fear, intends to cause you to regress and go backward and become who you were before you knew God.
Be on guard and understand that the adversary delights in your fear because it paralyzes you, and many of the gains you have made can be erased, setting you on a course to curse God and blame him. You must not succumb to fear because God has not given you a spirit of fear but power and a sound mind. Solomon wrote some wise words, “As a man thinks, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 NKJV). What you think about forms what you believe. And if you are not careful, you can turn your thoughts of fear and defeat into believing the worst is headed your way. God said, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (Deuteronomy 31:8 NLT).
A few years ago, I interviewed a man who told a story of how he and his two boys were out on a boat fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The boat hit a rock and began to sink. They jumped overboard and trod water with their life preservers for over 24 hours before help arrived. The father of the boys had no time for God and never went to church with his young boys and his wife on Sunday. But that day, those two little boys were reciting the promises of God to their father. It kept them all hopeful, and soon they were rescued. After the rescue, the father gave his life to Jesus. And today is a fine man of God because his boys had kept the promises of God hidden in their hearts, and in a time of fear, those promises poured out of their hearts and saved their fathers.
Today, Jesus is holding his hand out to you. Take hold of his hand and quit looking at your circumstances. Quit looking at what experts say and start looking into the eyes of Jesus for your comfort, peace, direction, and destiny. Jesus could not and would not be the son of God if he allowed his children to sink and get swallowed up by the adversary’s lies. Remember, God is good all the time. Use this time to reacquaint yourself with God. He has you in the palm of his hands; he never intends to let you go. Every time you wash your hands, remember whose hands you are in because your best is yet to come!
