Overwhelming your fears
As we enter 2021 we can tell already it is going to be a challenging year.
Ruth and I are back to homeschooling with millions of other parents, the nursery is closed again, while I'm working for the church and launching a coaching business. I'm sure you could give a list of challenges too. Everyone has significant burdens at this time.
It is easy for anxious thoughts to be on repeat mode, and before long, we can feel overwhelmed. I've lost much sleep over the years following this pattern.
Sometimes we can see ourselves in a spiral of negative emotion and speech. There have been moments where I've experienced that fear of ill health, lack of provision and even a lack of significance, and it has not gone away easily. There is a stubbornness to fear, like an old injury that recurs.
Fear spreads too. It starts specific and then gets generalised and increasingly irrational and ultimately overwhelming. It can even paralyse our decision making.
I've been thinking about this word "overwhelming". We saw the Capitol in Washington DC stormed and overwhelmed by protesters recently, we're told the NHS could be overwhelmed at any moment, that Brexit will overwhelm businesses with a new bureaucracy. There is a lot of talk of being overwhelmed.
So what is the origin of the word,
It's a mid-14c word "to turn upside down, overthrow, knock over," meaning "to submerge completely". Like a boat being washed over, by a big wave. In the figurative sense of "to bring to ruin" is attested from 1520s.
So how can God's word reframe our reality that can seem overwhelming?
Matthew 3
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. 14 But John tried to stop him, saying, "I need to be baptised by you, and are you coming to me?"
15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be this way for now, because this is the proper way for us to fulfill all righteousness." [m]
At this, he permitted him to be baptised.[n] 16 When Jesus had been baptised, he immediately came up out of the water. Suddenly, the heavens opened up for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. 17 Then a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love. I am pleased with him!"
This is a story of Jesus, the Son of God being overwhelmed. Being submerged in water as a necessary sign to show he identified fully with humanity's need for repentance.
So, "baptism" means to be submerged. It was an ancient non-religious word. It is given new meaning in the bible.
Jesus' baptism is repentance on our behalf, he identified with our sin, with our fears, Jesus is submerged in our fears, but in coming out of the water he hears His Father's voice, "You are my Son, I am well pleased."
Jesus redeems our experience of humanity and reality. He replaces the constant fear within humanity of an absence of his loving Presence with the assurance of his Presence.
Jesus has done everything in his humanity to redeem our humanity from fear. He brings change from the inside of our human plight.
We want God's love, the gospel and our identity to overwhelm our interpretation of life right now.
Jesus has overwhelmed our fears. You are included in that victory, and in that new humanity. At any time, anxiety can be overcome by love, by your identity as a son of God.
We want God's Spirit to overwhelm us with the actual reality of the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes it feels like fear lurks under the surface ready to capsize you even when you're in a good moment and a positive conversation. It's like there's a voice whispering, "something bad is going to happen". It undermines our experience, joy and Presence at that moment.
In 2021 God wants you to know that his love, his good news can overwhelm your fears at any moment. The Holy Spirit is ready to be the dominate experience of your life. The Spirit of adoption relays the truth of who you really are; a participant of Jesus' redeemed humanity.
We know we are tuning into reality, into the gospel when our fears are undermined, re evaluated and resized. This year fear will come running at us, but so will our heavenly Father. The question is, what will overwhelm us in 2021?
This is a battle of the mind.
Will a stream of negative thoughts and emotions overwhelm our life in Christ? Will we settle for a downgraded experience of Christ to a "nice to have" feeling?
Or will the gospel overwhelm our fears, ruining their influence and call us to renounce their hold on us? Will we enjoy the baptism of the Spirit into the assurance of God's Presence and live courageously this year?
We can have fears, we will all have them, but we cannot partner with them.
Who in your life will partner with hope? Who will agree with you for a breakthrough? These are the people you need in your life. You do not need people parroting and repeating statements that pull you away from the faith and into fear. Find people to agree with the gospel's reality of God's constant Presence and reinterpret life in light of that truth.
What fears can overwhelm you?
What scripture could overwhelm you with truth to undermines these fears?
What experiences in life have overwhelmed you in a positive sense? Can you see God was in them?
Who will be a partner of hope?
