I don’t know about you all but sometimes the start of a new year can feel a bit overwhelming. There’s all that talk about resolutions, which just serves to add pressure to me. Have yours already gone by the wayside? Why do we need a new year to try and improve ourselves? Can’t we start that on any day we feel like it and not give it an arbitrary label like a resolution? It just feels like something else I have to do when we set it up like this. But perhaps that’s the exact motivation you need, so if that works for you, have at it.
To me, the new year actually feels a little like when you would get a syllabus at the start of a semester in college. We’re gonna cover all this stuff, write eight papers, do three projects and take six exams. Though I do somewhat appreciate knowing what’s coming, that always overwhelmed me. It’s like knowing too much. In that moment, there was so much it always felt impossible. That’s a good way to want to quit before we get started.
When we stand back and look at a whole upcoming year at once, it can just be too much. We look out at all the things that need done, the events coming up, the challenges to work through, the goals to meet, and the pressure of time or lack of it. Can I do it? Am I good enough? It weighs heavy. It sits on my chest and then creepy crawls into my brain where, if I’m not careful, it spirals out of control into a web of things that I’m convinced I can’t handle. Is that just me? You guys I really hope that’s just me. Except that I don’t think it is.
If it’s not the list of things I have to do, it’s the shape the world seems to be in. Disasters and devastation appear to be around every corner. Political disputes everywhere. Fighting, fighting and more fighting over the same issues again and again. So much poverty. So much poor health. So much bad behavior and bullying from the playgrounds to world leaders. So much tension and anger.
I think it’s fear and anxiety run amok. It’s insecurity. It’s Satan. As I sit here typing this, my brain keeps listing all the things I need to get done. It’s trying to push a few of them ahead of writing this. It’s reminding me that no matter what I’m doing, I’m falling beyond or falling short. It’s forcing me to make decisions on what might be more important or more urgent than something else. I’m not solving any of the world’s problems. And because people are so quick to anger, I’m sure I’m ticking a few people off. Goodness how exhausting it can be to feel like everything is more pressing or more significant than it is.
I’m going to throw in a disclaimer before I go any further. Please take your mental health seriously. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help if this is an issue that is stopping you in your tracks. I am in no way qualified for that.
What God has put on my heart today is a reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way. We do not have to do this to ourselves. God is still in control and we need not fear. If you want to dig up Scriptural references about fear – there are plenty of them. I’m not going to give you a big list of them. We’re told throughout the Bible not to fear because God is with us. It’s true. He is. He’s with us now and He’s already at the end. Spoiler alert, He wins.
One thing I find particularly interesting is how we seem to think that if we don’t fight for Him or if we let something happen that His whole plan will go awry. Oh Friends, no. That’s giving ourselves too much credit and power. He doesn’t need us. He wants us. We don’t fight for Him. He fights for us. Let go of that pressure. That white-knuckled grip that we’ve got on the belief that God’s plan is contingent on how hard we battle to protect Him and what we think He wants is keeping us from having open hands and hearts to receive what He wants to give us.
It’s making us angry and fearful by putting false pressure on us. I John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Guess who is great at torment? Yep, Satan. If you are consumed by fear and torment over the state of the world and the pressures of the daily fights to stay on top of whatever it is you think you have to fight, might I suggest you look for love instead.
I mean love in the form of Jesus Christ. God rescued us with Jesus. Look for Jesus. Accept His invitation to you. Put Jesus back in the center of everything where He needs to be. When we’re full of the love of Jesus (not the love of church, or organized religion, legalism or politics) then fear and anxiety slip away. There’s no room for them. Get to know Jesus on a personal level. Put Him first. Everything in all of humanity is secondary to that. That’s the love that spills back out and casts out fear.
Sometimes God does ask us to go to battle. But if He asks, we need not fear. This doesn’t mean problems go away, disasters don’t happen or our to-do list magically gets shorter. It just means we’re being led by love instead of fear in the midst of those things. That’s what God wants for us. As we move on into this new year and new decade, let’s resolve to actually put Christ in the center of our lives and watch love take hold.
