The alternative to worry

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14.1

Many people can identify with troubled hearts!  For the disciples gathered around the table with Jesus, their troubled hearts were trying to make sense of what he was revealing about his departure from them.  In other words, their security was being shaken.  Perhaps this sometimes happens to you and people or things that you once trusted are now looking shaky?  Maybe you are aware that you have no idea what the future really holds for you?  Yet having our security shaken need not always be bad.  Often it is a means of encouraging us to walk into new opportunities or recognising a fresh call into a new life or a different way of thinking.

Being told not to be anxious is not very helpful – unless we are given an alternative.  Jesus does just this: he tells us not to be troubled and that the alternative is to trust.  The challenge is not just to trust in the concept of a God who is bigger than us, but in Jesus who enables trust to be personal.  The disciples were invited to put their trust in him, the one they had witnessed performing outstanding miracles and whom they had seen reaching out to touch people with such tenderness and love.  This is the one in whom they were invited to trust – and so are we.

Whatever new challenges you face, you are invited to turn to the one that you read about in the pages of the New Testament.  In the same way that Jesus came to the help of so many people back in those days, you can trust in his help for you now.

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