For The Anxious Heart
On a Boeing 747 flight over the Atlantic Ocean a few years back, the big plane hit an even bigger air pocket and suddenly we felt like we were plunging from the sky! The elderly lady next to me gripped my arm in panic! My arm hurt but I was calm. The difference between me and her wasn’t the turbulence, it was trust: I trusted the pilot and the plane.
Do you struggle with anxiety? Maybe it’s an occasional sleepless night, or maybe it’s a breathless, constant panic attack. You’re not alone.
Anxiety defines our era. Everywhere is turbulence. Headlines shift by the hour. Cultural norms are unsettled. Financial futures are fragile; international affairs are even more fragile. And our personal lives race without rest. We live with an underlying awareness that something—everything—could go wrong at any moment.
The world Jesus’s disciples lived in was not so different. The Roman “Pax Romana” brought an imposed peace for a vast area that included the Middle East, enforced by aggressive military actions. Rome kept order in the streets, but it could not calm the human heart.
Jesus offers something far deeper than protected circumstances. He is Shalom — God’s promised peace where even in conflict nothing is ultimately missing or broken; you’re rightly aligned with God and your soul rests in belonging because your trust is securely in him. Jesus told his disciples, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 ESV).
Jesus doesn’t whitewash the presence of turbulent times, “In this world you will have tribulation.” Instead, in the same breath He says, “Take heart; I have overcome the world.”
You may say, “I’ll relax if the situation improves.”
Jesus tells you, “Rest because I have already secured your future.”
One type of peace depends on outcomes. The other depends on trust in Jesus.
Dear anxious heart, you no longer have to read every headline as a threat or interpret every disruption as disaster. Because Christ has overcome the world, nothing you face arrives outside His authority or beyond His redemption.
The storms you face don’t have the final word. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Jesus Christ has already navigated the worst storm imaginable — and emerged victorious.
Peace is not found by fighting to control your environment or circumstances — an exhausting and impossible task — but by surrendering to the One who calms the storms and has overcome the world.
Today, when you feel worried and anxious, release what you cannot control. Name it before the Lord. Then remind your soul: My peace is not determined by what happens to me, but by the One who has overcome for me.
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