Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Jesus told his disciples not to allow their hearts to be troubled. Jesus never seemed to think that anxiety or fear should be allowed to have the upper hand in the hearts of his disciples. At another place he instructed them, "do not be anxious about your life" (see Matthew 6:25). Yet Jesus never insisted on a sort of naive outlook or an unrealistic optimism. In the passage just quoted the basis of confidence was the fact that their heavenly Father knew all of their needs. The Father knew and intimately cared about the disciples of Jesus to the degree that even the hairs of their heads were numbered (see Luke 12:7). In those passages the disciples reasons for confidence were in the Father. Here they are found also in the Son.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In order for us, as disciples of Jesus, to not find our hearts overwhelmed by trouble we must actively exercise our faith. It is not as though once we take on the status of disciples we automatically cease to feel anxiety or fear. In fact, in feeling these emotions we may sometimes think we are failing as disciples. But it is normal to feel them. Yet our response is called to be more than normal, more than merely natural. We are called to live a supernatural life, and our response to such challenges is one example of how this is meant to manifest.
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (see Philippians 4:6).
We must learn to see the causes of our anxiety and fear in the greater context of our faith and the providence of God. When minds renewed by the Holy Spirit consider the potential challenges of daily life and the many potential pitfalls of quotidian existence they have an anchor of unshakable hope that these circumstances are unable to touch.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus isn't preparing a set of perfect earthly circumstances for his people. He has a greater goal and a better reward in store for us. His providential protection of his people in this world is designed to ensure that his plans to live together with us forever in the next world might be realized.
Where I am going you know the way.”
Thomas said to him,
“Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?”
On the one hand we don't know exactly what this life will have in store for us. We do know that even here we a privileged to experience a foretaste of heaven and a pledge of our future resurrection. But that there will also be storms is also a certainty. The way the events of this life will take shape is not ultimately something we can carefully map in advance, as though by doing so we could eliminate all surprises and temper our tendency to volatile emotional responses. And yet, even in the midst of the maze of circumstances we have a map that does provide the way, a compass the provides absolute assurance that allows us to head in the right direction.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”
When the storms make navigation almost impossible let us follow Jesus. Let us remember that he is leading us to the only destination that is truly worthy of the journey. Other maps promise treasure but ultimately lead to those edges where, as the tropes of old adventure movies may have had it, 'Here there be monsters'. Only Jesus can provide the whole perspective necessary to one day arrive at his Father's house. In that place alone is perfect peace to be found. But we can nevertheless not lose ourselves to fear and anxiety when we recognize that is the journey to which we are committed.
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