Balm for the Anxious Heart

Do you feel like the earth is giving way? 
Like everything we know is either interrupted or about to be? 
Does that make you as anxious as it makes me? 

If so, then keep reading. Psalm 46 blessed my heart and I pray it blesses yours.  

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way…”

Maybe it should comfort us to know that even the psalmist felt as if the earth was giving way. I know it comforts me. That, even before our current troubles, this writer from thousands of years ago also believed the worst was upon him.

The psalmist says that BECAUSE God is our refuge and strength, a present (and active) help in trouble, we don’t have to fear THOUGH the earth gives way.

Troubles will come and go, then new troubles will take their place.

But “come, behold the works of the Lord…”

We can dwell on the things happening around us or we can dwell on our Lord.

Tucked away in this psalm is a command and a promise.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

Command: Be still and know

Be Still: Stop squirming. Stop fighting. Stop resisting the rest that God offers.

Have any of you held a sleeping baby in your lap when they’re fighting sleep? If they’d just be still, they’d find rest. But they won’t. Sometimes we act like tired babies refusing to rest.

And Know That I Am God: Not only do we have to stop striving in our strength, but we have to remember something: that HE is God.

He is the great I Am.
He is all-powerful.
He holds the universe in His hands.
Nothing is beyond His reach or away from His control.

Like fussy babies, we have to know that He is God and our job is to rest and remember that fact.

Promise: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!

It’s not about us. It’s about Christ and His glory.

He WILL (not maybe, not hopefully) be exalted.

We’re on the winning side! Don’t ever forget that. We might be called upon from time to time to “take one for the team” but our team wins.
Sometimes we act as if His exaltation isn’t real. That somehow in the chaos of this world, it might not work out. That something the All-Seeing God missed will lead to His ruin. 
But that simply isn’t true. He, the Master Author, knows the beginning from the end. We’re in safe hands if we trust in Jesus Christ. 

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” …so we might add, “I will not fear what man may do to me.”

I encourage you to read all of Psalm 46. I also encourage you to memorize vs 10.

Consider other verses that talk about why we can trust our Lord. What do we know about Him? How does He describe Himself in the Bible?

And please, share these verses with me!! Let’s charge each other with resting and remembering who our God is.