Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. (Heb 4:14-16, CSB)
You would have to have your head buried deep in the sand to not see that we live in an incredibly complex and divided world right now. Now this isn’t something new, but because of the rise of the internet and more specifically social media, information is now pumped from the world into our little devices that live in our pocket which we can access at any time. So unless you go on a total media ban, it is almost impossible to escape all the bad news that the world has to offer. Now in no way do I want to downplay the seriousness of things that are happening in our world at the moment, and though we shouldn’t be surprised (as our Lord told us these things would happen Matt 24:6-8), we can become fearful. So we might ask, where does all this fear come from? Well might I point out that it doesn’t come from God. No in fact for anyone who has put their trust in Christ and received the Holy Spirit of God, fear is in no way “natural” to the child of God any more (2 Tim 1:7). Now that’s not to say that just because we are Christians we are instantly fearless, no that would be incredibly unwise to believe because we still live in this world and wrestle with our old lives (Rom 7:14-25 c.f. Eph 6:12), but that’s the thing, what we have received doesn’t cause us to go backwards to our old lives of fear but forwards; growing and going from strength to strength in Christ (Ps 84:7, Rom 8:15, 29).
And so when fear starts rising and anxiety starts gripping, we can know that that is not coming from our Heavenly Father. And that’s important to remember when we are tempted to go to that dark place, because we actually have a choice; a choice to either run and hide from God or run and wait on God. That is the great privilege of the child of God, we have access to the creator of the universe, which by ourselves we were excluded from (Ex 19:12-13 c.f. Heb 4:14-16, 12:18-25). So might I suggest this little acronym for you to remember next time you feel that dark shadow of trepidation rising in your chest. PCR (should be easy to remember even in this post-covid world). So what does PCR stand for?
PRAY: Now because God isn’t absent from our world, but very much involved in it, we can come to him over everything and anything. And the incredible thing is (as we see in the passage above) he knows exactly what we are going through because God became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14a); and so he is able to sympathise with us. And before you think to yourself, God doesn’t care about all that I am going through, well we are told expressly to go to him with ALL that is causing us fear and anxiety (1 Pet 5:7; Ps 50:15).
CONFESS: I don’t know about you but when I feel like things are going wrong, I feel like hiding behind the proverbial bush and trying to figure it all out on my own. But we need to see fretting for what it is and that is a lack of trust (Matt 6:25-27). It is totally okay to go to God and say I don’t understand all of this that is going on, but I know that you do, please help me to trust in what you were doing. God will never rebuke a person that comes to him with that sort of humility (Matt 5:5, Mk 9:23-25).
REMIND: This is incredibly important to remember. We are purchased with the blood of Jesus and God loves us more than you or I can possibly imagine (Jn 3:16, Rom 8:28-30, Eph 1, Gal 2:20). And so as you’re in the prayer closet, ask for God’s grace to shift your mind from “the what if’s” too “the what is" true in Christ. It is called renewing your mind and we can do that because we are no longer slaves of sin, but the children of God who are signed, sealed and will one day be delivered fully and finally. That is the good news and our reality (Rom 12:2, Eph 1:13-14, Rev 20:11-15).