Do Not Let Your Heart Be Troubled

Text: Luke 10:38-41

It is natural or part of human nature to be concerned about unpleasant situations in our lives, family, church and nation. For example, in 1 Samuel 10:2, the Bible tells us that when the donkeys of Kish the father of Saul, were missing and he sent Saul to go and look for them, he became worried when after a long time he hadn’t seen his son. This was natural concern. No parent won’t be concerned if your child who normally gets back from school at 2pm, isn’t back by 10pm in the night.

We are not to go through life with a carefree, indifferent and nonchalant attitude to things happening in our lives, family, church, nation and world at large. But there is a kind of concern that aggravates to worry. Worry that can weaken your spirit, soul and body. John 10:10 tells us that the devil is out to destroy; this is his mission in life. Worry is a perfect tool for him to carry out this mission.

In Luke 10:41, Jesus told Martha that she was “worried and upset about so many things”. I believe He is saying the same thing to you and I today. We are worried and upset about so many things. Perhaps your own worry is that your rent is due, your landlord is threatening you, and you don’t have the money to renew you rent or move to another place. Or maybe your own worry is that you are not sure you will pass the job interview you went for last week so you are worried and afraid that you are still going to be jobless or you still have to remain in that job where the pay isn’t very good. Your own worry could be that you got a negative and frightening report from your doctor and you are worried and afraid that you might not make it, you may soon die. Many people are worried about the state of the nation and other problems happening around the world such as terrorist attacks and economies that are crashing all over the place.

These are genuine reasons to be concerned. But as genuine as they sound to us, the Lord is saying to us like he said to Martha, “you are worried and upset about so many things”. Do you know that a genuine concern for national issues if not checked, if not controlled, can grow into a type of worry that sends believers to the valley of dry bones? Proverbs 17:22 tells us that a crushed, broken, anxious or worried spirit dries up the bones. In Ezekiel 37:10-11 reading from the New Living Translation, we see that the main reason why a vast army; soldiers of God, those equipped and empowered to do battle for God and face any kind of opposition, ended up in the valley of dry bones was that they started thinking and believing that all hope was lost for Israel, their nation was finished. The worry and fear in their hearts about what was happening in their nation started drying them up physically and spiritually till they were nothing but dry bones with no life, no power, no strength, no hope, no joy.

In John 14:1 Jesus said “do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God, trust in me”. If our hearts are troubled about anything whether it is a personal issue, family issue, national or global issue, it means that we aren’t really trusting God. The two don’t go together. You can’t trust God and be troubled at the same time. You can’t be troubled and at the same time trust God.

At different times in Jesus ministry, He pointed out that if you are troubled, worried and anxious it shows that you have little faith. In Matthew 6:30, He said that if you are worried about clothes to wear, food to eat and what to drink you have little faith, you don’t trust that your Heavenly Father is able to meet your daily needs. In Matthew 8:24-26, when a storm broke out in the boat Jesus and His disciples where and His disciples told Him that they were going to drown. He told them that for thinking they would drown; they wouldn’t make it, the storm would overwhelm them, they wouldn’t survive, they had little faith.

WHY WE NEED FREEDOM FROM WORRY

Worry is a much more serious problem than that person you believe is a witch and is out to get you. Medically we have been told that worry can cause so many diseases such as high blood pressure, panic or anxiety attacks. This is what worry looks like in the spiritual realm:

1. Worry is a spiritual traffic light giving you wrong signals.

We have all seen traffic lights before. Those lights that tell you when to GO, when to STOP and when to get ready to go or proceed with caution. When a person is drunk, the person starts to see double. The drunk person can see GREEN as RED, YELLOW as GREEN. That is how worry is. When you are fretting, anxious and worried, you don’t really think clearly and properly. You can misread and misinterpret the voice of God because of the fear in your heart. When God is saying GO you think He is saying WAIT, when He is saying STOP you think He is saying GO.