His Encouragement #89

Good morning, and welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

Isaiah 37:26 (ESV)

“Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins…”

For the past few weeks, I have been battling with a strange anxiety. I am not typically an anxious person. I tend to do a pretty good job of letting God be the Boss. But lately, I’ve been struggling hard. I brought the subject up to my mom, and she admitted that she has been battling a large amount of anxiety too. Something is in the air, as they say.

I don’t know what is causing this anxiety. I think it is a combination of many things — I’m still struggling with my dad’s death, I’m trying to be there for my mom as much as possible, a new school year is right around the corner, I’ve taken on two new responsibilities at work, I’m dealing with my daughter’s seizure diagnosis and finding her a new normal, paying bills in the summer stresses me out (they always seem so much higher this time of year), I’m trying to stay on top of my blogging/reviewing obligations (I’ve cut back considerably, but that makes me feel guilty), and I’m worrying for a few people close to my heart who have BIG life things happening right now. Each thing on its own is a lot, but all of this is currently on my plate. I feel a smidge overwhelmed.

Yesterday in my Bible study, I read Isaiah 37 and verse 26 really helped to calm me down a bit. It’s an excellent reminder that God has a plan. He has had this plan for a very long time. And, this plan means He is in total control. Yes, I have a lot on my plate. My plate is overflowing. God knows this. He has planned my steps to get to this point. What matters is how I handle it. Do I curl up in fear? Do I scream at God in anger? Or do I pray and have a conversation with my Heavenly Father?

In Isaiah’s time, when he wrote verse 26, Jerusalem was in dire straits. Assyria was outside its front gates ready to break them down. The Rabshakeh was arrogantly spewing words that quite frankly would have given me a heart attack. Isaiah 37:1 tells us that after hearing the words of the Rabshakeh, Hezekiah “tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord.”

I think the key to defeating anxiety is twofold. First, we have to remember that God has a plan. Nothing happening in our lives is shocking or surprising to God. Nothing happening on this earth is shocking or surprising either. God is prepared! He has a plan formed from days of old. The second thing we must do in order to defeat anxiety is to go directly to God just like Hezekiah did. It needs to be natural. It needs to be so much a part of us that there is no room for anxiety in our hearts because God takes up all the space. Once we’ve remembered that God is the Boss and we’ve gone to Him in prayer, we can easily defeat those pesky anxious feelings.

If you are struggling with anxiety, know that God has a plan for you and He is in full control. Go to Him in prayer. He’s waiting to talk to you about everything that’s weighing you down!

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes