The thought often crosses my mind when I hear about someone who is fighting a devastating disease, navigating an arduous season of care-giving or reeling from a sudden tragic loss.
I can’t imagine facing something like that. I don’t think I could do it.
Maybe you have had similar thoughts. We look at others, admire their tenacity and faith in the midst of trials, and think if that happened to us, we’d be toast.
There are years that go by in a blink and you don’t remember much of them, just that they happened and that you’re ready to move on to the next grade, the next age, the next thing that might be interesting or exciting.
Then there are years that are significant, momentous, full—in every sense of the word. You may not realize it as the months tick by, you might only see it in retrospect. But when you finally see it, you know it.
I wonder—could 2020 be one of those years? Even with all the loss and disappointment, all the unprecedented and unexpected events, all the ways in which people have been wrung out and laid bare?
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
So the old Christmas hymn goes, and what a timely thought during these troubled and tumultuous days.
In recent months, I’ve read, heard and found myself thinking phrases like, “We all need to …” or, “If only people who call themselves Christians would …” or, “It’s time for both sides to …”
Once the Christmas decorations are put away and the last pine needles swept out the front door, Randy starts talking about spring. He’s done with winter; he’s ready for sunny skies, gentle breezes and warmer temperatures.
Not me. Especially this winter, when we didn’t get our first real snowfall until a few weeks into January. I love my cozy winter home. I love my winter wardrobe. I love winter, period.
Now, though—not long after all the snow has melted—I feel the stirrings in my heart too. Not a longing for spring, exactly. But I gaze out at the gray landscape, even take a stroll around my backyard, and start looking forward to gardening season.
The what-ifs have loomed large and scary for a long while, haven’t they?
I wrote about this several months ago, about how 2020 was the year when I finally decided to get serious about trying to let tomorrow worry about itself. (Better late than never, right? See here and here for more on that story.)
I’m still serious about it, but I don’t want to sugarcoat my efforts. It’s often a tough mental battle, one that wears me out and keeps me up at night.
There’s so much to be concerned about these days, isn’t there? What tops my list might not even be on yours, but I think we can all agree that we are living in anxious times, and that it’s very easy to let our imaginations and fears about what might happen in the short- or long-term future get the best of us.
Here’s a quick example. Let’s say I have a slight headache some evening. I could just go to bed and hope it’s gone in the morning. Or I could start fretting. What if it’s Covid? What if we all have to quarantine? What if we run out of food or (worse yet) toilet paper or essential medications? What if one of us has to be hospitalized?
What if …
What if …
WHAT IF …
I can’t think of anything less productive than this little exercise, but once the ball starts rolling, it’s hard to stop it. I’ve been there a time or seven in recent weeks and months; perhaps you have too.
There’s another kind of what-if, though, one that Pastor Colin Smith calls the “what-ifs of faith.” A good example is found in Psalm 124:1: “What if the Lord had not been on our side? Answer, O Israel!” (Good News Translation)
Do you see it there? What if the Lord had not been on our side?
The point, of course, is that if we have accepted God’s gift of salvation and been adopted into His eternal family, God is on our side. Psalm 118:6 affirms this truth:
“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (ESV)
Everything would look very different if God were not on our side, wouldn’t it? Not that everything would turn out how we want, every time or even some of the time. But if we think our situations or circumstances are difficult now, imagine what would they be like without His comfort, His direction, His grace, His peace?
Many of us have plenty to be concerned about right now—there’s no getting around that. But if you find yourself craving an antidote for the anxious what-ifs, I’d encourage you to try something that has really helped me lately.
The next time you find yourself getting caught up in an escalating cycle of what-ifs, stop and ask yourself this simple question:
“What if God were not on my side?”
It probably won’t alter your situation, but there’s a very good chance that those eight words will calm your heart and reorient your perspective, right then and there. In these uncertain times, that can make all the difference in the world.
♥ Lois
Everything would look very different if God were not on our side, wouldn’t it? Share on X If we think our situations or circumstances are difficult now, imagine what would they be like without God's comfort, His direction, His grace, His peace? Share on XP.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.
The week I turned 50, my blog had an identity crisis. I’ll spare you the techie details; let’s just say that, between the original problem and the mistakes I made trying to fix it, I wasted a great deal of time I could have spent doing any number of more productive things.
I’m not telling you this to drag you down into the weeds of blogging with me, but rather, to share that this identity crisis with my blog sort of triggered—or maybe just exacerbated—a bit of an identity crisis in my own heart.