“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” – Deuteronomy 3:16 NLT

My question to all of us is do we truly feel like we won when we chose God as our Lord and Savior? Do we truly walk in it? Do we accept God’s challenge to be strong and persevere? This sums up the theme of a lot of Bible verses, analogies, parables, and decrees from God that are seen throughout the Bible – to believe, obey, and walk in that obedience.

In this life we live, the moment we take our first breath, we sign a guaranteed contract to go through one thing or another. But how do we go through these things? We live in a world where it preaches individuality, relying on self, and we soon find out that we have limited capabilities. These limits can lead us to good (God) or worldly coping mechanisms. Throughout scripture, God reminded our ancestors not to lean unto their own understanding or copy the practices of the world. He continually reminds us of the same thing, especially in the times we live in (Proverbs 3:5 NLT). I know I gave my life to God a long time ago and God has done a ton in my life since then that has increased my faith in him, but recently God made me examine myself and my entire walk. What I found out was shocking. I noticed I still had tendencies and coping mechanisms from my previous life. These coping mechanisms (i.e. depression, anxiety, music, TV, social media, and self-doubt in the forms of believing nothing will work because I’m a bad person or good things don’t ever happen for me). I recognized these worldly coping mechanisms as things I was comfortable with, things that felt familiar to my flesh, and most notably, things I could always count on and trust in the facade of security they had always brought me. These are just a few worldly ways I realized I ran to first before I ran to God in my moments of doubt and weakness. How? I’m a Christian, right? I’ve given up the world in pursuit of God, haven’t I? 

I realized I used going to church, reading my Word, and listening to worship music as my measuring stick for having some faith in God. But without all those things, did I still have faith or doubt about whether God could provide or support me through challenging times and seasons? My question is, do you have faith? Do you truly believe? I believe self-examination at times, especially if God prompts it, can be an eye-opener for all of us. Either it confirms our faith or reveals the lack thereof in our walks.

  “Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the LORD our God. Those nations will fall down and collapse, but we will rise up and stand firm.” – Psalms 20:7-8 NLT

These verses show me the world and anything in it doesn’t have the same pedigree, power, or foundation as God. That sense of security is hard to comprehend or explain (Philippians 4:7 KJV). In a sense with God, we always have the winning ticket or the cheat code to finally beat the game we call life, especially when problems arise in it. I’m not saying all of my coping mechanisms are bad or that we should be phoneless monks, no. But I think we all can speak to moments in our lives where we knew we put our stock and security in something other than God, and most notably, our hope. We’re human, we have moments of weakness, and feelings of self-doubt when we don’t feel like we measure up to the task – that’s a normal human feeling and experience. We may not control the feelings we feel, but we do have control over what we do with them. 

However, God challenges us to be different as Christians because the hope we have, which is Him, is something the world can’t offer or give to us. Having God doesn’t mean walking through beautiful meadows and having sunshine-filled days continually every day, no. We’ll have dark days and stormy seasons that will make us want to give up on ourselves, others, and this life. But we have to believe God is greater and more real than our own realities. To believe in his faithfulness, nature, and history. I believe that’s the challenge God sets before each and every one of us. The choice of choosing Him or something else and deciding how will we get through? Peace comes from a focus on and pursuit of Jesus, it is not an absence of fear and insecurity.