Five Fundamentals For Your Devotional LifeSample

All’s Well That Ends Well

We are not, as Dostoyevsky wrote, “creatures who can get used to anything.” We are creatures who are constantly worn down and worried because life is long and complex. It’s busy, and it’s expensive and demanding. But Jesus was not making an observation. He was making a promise, “Come unto me … and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

The peace of Christ isn’t found by looking for it but at it. Similarly, His peace is lost when we look away from Him. When we fix our eyes upon our worries, it is the things of the next world that grow strangely dim. A sad fact, because, as C. S. Lewis said, “The Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.”

Worry, if we let it, can become like atheism. It can grow into unbelief about who Jesus is and what Jesus says. This worry acts as if Jesus didn’t exist, or that Jesus isn’t who He says He is. But if we examine this worry, we’ll discover that the reason Jesus isn’t there isn’t because He left, it’s because He wasn’t invited.

Peter recommends “casting all your anxieties on [Jesus], because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). But if this is too much, we can simply pray, “I believe; help me in my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). For whatever the occasion or extremity—minor or monumental—the love of God is ready to illuminate our darkness. God is like the sun, and we’re the earth. God is always shining but not always seen because He waits for us to turn to Him, just as the dawn awaits the rotation of the earth.

In all things and by all means, we should cast our worries onto God. But even more, we should cast ourselves upon God. For the heart of man belongs in the hands of God. Once it resides there, as T. S. Eliot wrote, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Application:

Pray to God in whatever posture or capacity you feel most relaxed—taking a walk, having a bath, drinking a glass of wine, or whatever works for you—and invite Him into your rest and trust.

Start reading the 40-day devotional of Winter with God by T.W.S. Hunt: broadstreetpublishing.com/winter-god-free-preview