A prescription

I wrote yesterday that Jesus' gift of peace is not escapist or surface. It's not some state of feel-good emotion that magics away difficult situations. Rather Jesus seeks to meet us where we are. And I know that, today, so many have increased worries and anxiety for family, friends and ourselves.

In his book Prescription for anxiety, Leslie Weatherhead (a famous Methodist preacher in the last century) gives advice beginning with:

1. Jesus looked away from himself to God.  Even in His anguish He did that and called God 'Father' at a time when it must have felt as though an omnipotent Father might have guided Him in a far less agonizing path..  In circumstances far less tragic, in the fret and turmoil of this age of anxiety there must be continually for us times when we contemplate God.... and try to rest our fear-tossed minds in His greatness and adequacy. 

It would be a good thing for some of us to write out a few sentences from the Bible on a card and prop it up near our mirror so that while we dress in the morning our minds can meditate on the themes they suggest:

                    Be still and know that I am God.
                    The Lord is my Shepherd.
                    My peace I give unto you
                    He is able to save to the uttermost.
                    The peace of God which passes understanding can stand sentry
                    over our hearts and thoughts.

Christ is saying to us something like this: 'Your Father knows. He understands and cares. He has got your situation in hand. He is the Lord of history, the Master of everything we call accident, the Weaver of all our sins and failures and sorrows into His indestructible plans, and He is the Victor over death.