Some might suggest 2021 has not gotten off to a great start. And I might agree. I'm not alone I don't think. A popular meme right now commiserates "I'd like to cancel my subscription to 2021... the 7-day trial is enough".
In any case we have an invitation to continue learning what we were invited to learn last year - that hoping in anything but God is foolish. For our future preservation in tough circumstances we simply must learn to find our souls some better footing than to place our hope in a year, a person, a nation or an earthly outcome.
I pray you've learned to fare well in tough times. Historically I have not. For myself, I have too long and hard fixated on the difficulty in difficult circumstances and relinquished the peace God promises when my gaze is rightly directed at Him. Somewhere in the broken bits of my story I was seduced to believe a diabolical lie that has robbed me of more of my precious life than I can recount. I was led to believe my emotions were my best teacher, and because of that they became my ruler. This also is foolishness.
That is why this piece from King David's poetry collection is so disruptively hopeful:
"Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God."
-Psalms 42:5 and 43:5
Notice how David is carefully observing and then asking his soul very specific questions?
And how he then commands his soul what to do?
He appears to be exercising fierce mastery over his emotions. Is this self-counseling? Is it really possible and effective? I confess I have paid thousands of dollars over the years to professional counselor(s) to help me quiet the storm inside to find peace. The homework I paid them to give me, (which I confess at the time I thought was impotent) is actually really consistent with what King David did.
I once heard Dr. Tim Keller say it this way, "Talk to yourself, but don't listen to yourself."
In other words, don't trust what your downcast and disturbed soul is telling you. Like a child it rarely understands the truth and it lies. But like most normal children it will respond to loving and firm correction. To a surprising degree you can actually tell your soul the truth and tell it what to do. Have you ever tried it, backing up your reproof with what you know is a higher truth? Paul affirms this power we have by telling us to "cast down arguments that exalt themselves above the knowledge of God and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Cor 10:5). He names this superpower our “divine weapon.”
As I practice this power I'm discovering it works. And as I do the reps I'm more confidently telling my soul to step back in line and the thief he can to go to hell.
As a son of God and a prepper I believe it's prudent we start exercising this incredible power we possess and hiding the highest truths in our hearts like treasure in a field. This is an essential piece of our initiation. It might never again be as easy to practice as it is right now.
Bless you allies. Be strong and courageous. Put your hope in God.
As Sons,
Jay
This meditation from Tim Keller has been disruptively hopeful to me.