Good News for Anxious Hearts

We live in anxious times. This is nothing new. Of course the first thing that pops into one’s head is the pandemic. It has been awful and has dominated our thinking for almost two years. None of us planned for it. And even now as it looks to be on retreat no one is quite sure what will happen next. We hope Delta was the last wave, the last new variant, but we don’t really know. There’s a part of us that does not want to get our hopes up too high, so that we don’t have to suffer from yet another disappointment. I’ve honestly been mostly numb about it for a while now. Don’t want to think about it any more thank you very much!

If that wasn’t enough people are still people, and we are still up to all of our regular shenanigans. Who was really surprised to find out that huge tech companies like Facebook do not really have our best interests in mind, but rather put profits first (incredibly insane profits at that)? I’ve been reading Rockefeller’s excellent biography, Titan by Ron Chernow, and guess what? We’ve been here before. Zuckerberg and Facebook (not to mention Amazon, Apple, and Google) are a modern day Standard Oil….monopolies that have enormous power and influence over our daily lives. The 6 hour blackout of Facebook and its apps a couple weeks ago proved that. Their main goal is to get more people to use their products so that they can make more money. Nothing new. Same as every company or corporation that has ever existed.

Nations are still nations too…jockeying for power and influence on the global stage. I have a friend who lives in Taiwan, and he has shared how crazy it has been to have the Chinese military rattling its sabres…flying hundreds of military flights overhead and practicing invasion strategies on the shore right across the channel from Taiwan. It looks less like rattling and more like they are brandishing the blade of the sabre trying to intimidate Taiwan into submission and putting the world on notice. Reminiscent of Putin grabbing Crimea a few years ago. This tension has caused many to wonder if we have entered into a new cold war…only this time with China. Who knows, maybe that will be helpful…always worked in the past. Whenever we had a lot of trouble going on at home and needed to get the public to come together in some way, it always helped to have the Commies to get mad at. On that note go watch the original Red Dawn with Swayze and Sheen and remember the good old days full of the American spirit of anti-communism. I miss Patrick Swayze.

Anyway…I want to acknowledge these things because even if your life is absolutely perfect in every other area you are still living in a very stressful time. We work so hard to cope on a daily basis that we often forget how important it is for us to simply call a thing what it is and to recognize the pressure-cooker times in which we exist. I don’t know if you have read a lot of the Bible or any of it, but there are a lot of passages that talk about enemies or opposition or oppressive forces and most of the time they are external realities. They are outside of us coming against us. These external forces are real and can cause great distress and pain in life, and it is indeed good news that God is concerned and committed to deliver us from such forces. He is a God for justice.

At the same time, in my life there is something more immediate than an external enemy, something more intimate and internal that oppresses and seeks to destroy…that conspires to use all of this external data bombarding me through the “helpful” products of Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. to drown me in an ocean of anxiety…and that is my own heart. Whenever Disney tells me to just listen to my heart…I’m like, “#%$@ no!” I have a heart that loves to worry. It’s addicted to drama and fear. Not to mention the fact that it is also a bully. There are times when I can string together some of the cruelest things I have ever thought, and I direct them at myself. I have a heart that condemns me. Or in other words I struggle with shame and it’s significant other, anxiety.

I know this doesn’t describe you at all, but maybe someone you know. The truth is that this is evenly distributed across humanity, so much so that we have a cliché that articulates it: “You are your own harshest critic.” We don’t really need any help from the outside to see our faults, we have hearts that turn in on themselves. Just think of the first date that you ever went on and your inner monologue. You know you’re talking about what kind of music you like or something like that and you say, “I really listen to everything…except country,” and then they say Tim McGraw is their favorite singer. And instead of just celebrating the differences between you, you instantly think to yourself, “I can’t believe I said that. I’m such an idiot!” We do this because we want it to go well. Everyone has a place in their life like this where you feel the opportunity for shame more often than others. Relationships are common places where we feel shame, but it might be something else. The funny thing is that it is usually in an area that you really love. It gets exaggerated in that place because you really care about it, and you really want to do well. SO, if something doesn’t go as planned the internal shaming begins.

For me this is true of a lot of things, but probably none more than with music. As you can deduce from a quick browse of our site, I love music. I love writing it. I love playing it. I just love music. At the same time, I have rarely felt more fear or hesitancy in my life than when I started to play in front of people. This is true with any kind of creative expression. When you share it with someone it feels like one of the most vulnerable things you can do. You’re opening yourself up, right? To their opinions, to their judgment. Most of the time we usually beat everyone else to the punch. We are busy judging ourselves before anyone else can say a word. When I play a song in front of people, especially one that I’ve written, I notice every little hiccup or mistake that I make. The funny thing is when I ask others their honest opinions of how it went they usually have not noticed any of the mistakes I have noticed. In fact, more often than not it went well from their perspectives. We all have areas like this. Areas where it hits close to home and where we are our own harshest critic.

But John gives us a word from outside…a promise that breaks the cycle. “Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:20). I’m not sure I could be a Christian if this was not promised in the Bible. I don’t think I would really have anywhere to stand without it.

The good news of this promise is the fact that God is greater than our hearts. No matter how much shame, condemnation, or fear we may feel in our hearts, God is greater. His opinion of us is greater than anyone else’s opinion, especially our own. It is the thing that matters most, and it is the thing that exposes the messages of shame, overturns them and calls them lies. God says, “You are not worthless. You are not an idiot. You are not a reject.” He says, “You are my child. You are my beloved.” As John writes, “By this we know love, that he laid his life down for us” (1 John 3:16). This is the verdict over us that we are worth dying for to save. Jesus tells us that we are worth more to him than his own life and that he chooses to lay down his life for us, his sheep (John 10). No shameful or condemning message from our hearts can stand in the face of such love. That is what John is telling us in this passage today because Jesus has loved us in this way we can combat the messages of shame with the truth of God’s acceptance, love and forgiveness.

Now you may still be doubting. You may think that this is too good to be true, and you may not trust such a promise. Our experiences often testify to the fact that such a love is very hard to come by, if it exists at all. That’s why I love the final part of our verse today. “He knows everything” – this is a key statement from John especially when we are dealing with shame. Most often shame prevents us from being fully honest with ourselves and others. We think, “If he knew that about me, he would leave me.” Or “If she found out about this secret she’d never forgive me.” Shame causes us to hide. Our condemning hearts tell us that there’s no way we could be accepted for who we really are warts and all. So we put up the façade and attempt to not get found out.

But God already knows everything. We cannot hide anything from Him. He already knows all of our struggles, all of our shortcomings, all of the secrets that maybe no one else on earth knows. He knows everything, and He still willingly lays down His life for us. He forgave us! Isn’t that the most amazing thing you have ever heard? You are forgiven! You don’t have to hide any more. You can actually start to be honest about who you are. The façade can come down because Jesus already knows it all, and He has already chosen to die for you and rise again. This is freedom. This is why I think this verse is so crucial to being a Christian. It removes all the doubt. It removes the fear. It removes the shame. It completely changes our reality. It says we are fully known and fully loved. There are no conditions on this love because Jesus has removed them all by giving up his life for ours and rising again proving his power over everything, even death.

“Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” Amen.