Can it matter what happens to you now?
The antidote to trouble is always the same. When negative feelings begin whispering in our ears, we should drown them out with shouts of truth.
Monday morning isn’t a friend of most people. When I was a pastor, I didn’t mind it so much. The weekend was always busy, so I treated the first few hours of Monday like a Sabbath. I slept a bit later and took my time getting started. These days, however, are different. I have a schedule to keep, and it begins first thing on Monday, whether I like it or not.
For reasons I can’t always explain, some weeks are more challenging than others. The alarm sounds, and I beg it to give me one more hour. This Monday was one of those times. Not yet, I thought. Can’t the weekend stretch just a little longer?
Even so, I fell out of bed, showered, made coffee, and sat down with Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional. I read the first line, which asked, “Do you believe that your sins are forgiven and that Christ has made a full atonement for them?”
“By God’s grace, yes,” I replied.
“Then what a joyful Christian you ought to be!” Spurgeon continued. “How you should live above the common trials and troubles of the world!”
The exclamation points are original to Spurgeon’s text. Somehow, he knew I needed someone to shout at me this particular morning.
“Since sin is forgiven,” Spurgeon added, “can it matter what happens to you now?”
“Charles, when you’re right, you’re right.”
While our typical Monday morning woes are hardly significant, the antidote to trouble is always the same. When negative feelings begin whispering in our ears, we should drown them out with shouts of truth.
In Psalm 42, the Sons of Korah write, “My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps 42:3). Did they let their tears dictate the rest of the conversation? No, they promptly answered, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” (Ps 42:5).
Challenge your feelings with the truth of God. As C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity:
Comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end. If you look for comfort, you will not get neither comfort nor truth — only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.