IF THE LESSONS of history prove anything, they show that the records favor the strong. In the overwhelming flood of history, both universal and personal, powerful giants of both personal and cultural chaos have cast a pallor of fear and death over the life and spirit of all mankind, and over us in our time. Almost the entire world we know remains forever awash in such peril, and the attendant crippling emotions of anticipated fear. This is glossed over in our days, and weeks, and years of activities, but ‘normal life’ periodically comes to pointed separation from the background promises of hope that are suddenly counterposed by the harsh light of brutal day-to-day reality. We see this regularly in the broad world culture, and sometimes in circles closer to us. There are unfortunate trials in friends’ lives, our church families’ lives, and sometimes in our families, and in us.
During the long slide of ancient Israel’s descent from glory and back into slavery, occasionally one leader would stand up and acknowledge the Lord of Creation, the God of all history, he who permits and ordains the sometimes-difficult circumstances of life in order to turn people to him. Such a leader was Asa, king of Judah spanning over the 9 th and down to the 8 th century B.C. In the biblical narrative, his army was overwhelmingly outnumbered by the giant army of the Cushites. Defeat was not only probable, but by an accounting of any reasonable measure, inevitable. Asa recognized that the battle was not only between men and kingdoms and their calculated moves and motives, but that overarching all was the ever-present struggle in the power and principalities in the unseen realm above.
Asa cried out to the Lord, “LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name, we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you.” (2 Chron. 14:11) It was not just the nation of Israel that was at war in this; Asa clearly saw that the God of Israel was in conflict with the pagan gods. Asa’s hopes, trust, and future were not in the army of Israel, but in the strong right arm of Israel’s God. One man of courage, placed in a position of influence and leadership, at the center of impending death and destruction, called to out in faith to his LORD, and the Cushites were utterly defeated. With that, Asa’s kingdom was preserved, the nation was preserved, and with it, the lives of many men, women, and families. But above that, the name of Jehovah was victorious.
All around us, people of our day suffer the same anxieties. This is nothing new; every generation deals with the same issue. The fears of life have nibbled at the edges of hope, greedily gnawed trust to the bone, and seemingly voraciously consumed entirely the assurances of tenuously held promises of God.
Some of these people have been you and me. But in the grace of God in given in Christ, by the faithfulness of other praying people and our own unbelieving belief (cf. Mark 9:24), we begin the fumbling first steps to freedom. We learn a new hope, gingerly test a trembling trust, and begin to find a new strength. God makes all things new in our lives through Jesus. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17) In an instant? Perhaps, for some. Through process? Yes, for most. Ongoing, a work always unfinished yet so full of promise? Absolutely. We have been and continue to be delivered from the fearful giants of our lives in and through the hope, trust, and strength found in Christ. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13) The promises of God become ours through personal daily affirmations. We continually use scripture to build up our hope as we await the Lord to act on our behalf.
The Apostle Paul was in many ways a person just like all the rest of us. He writes of a time when he experienced great fear. “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.” (2 Cor. 1:8-9a) He stood where hope was poised in stark contrast to fear, and in reflection, thinks back about the faithfulness of God in in a very specific time of terror. “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.” (2 Cor. 1:9b-10)
Paul does not record these thoughts simply to tell his tale; instead, they are written as encouragement to us as we encounter our own trials. And that strengthening of the heart stretches across all generations of Christ-followers. Together, we say with Paul, “Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.” (2 Cor. 1:11) We understand and we know: ‘LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless.’
Q. What anxious thing within do I need unburdened by Jesus?
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