CHAPTER 15 - So You Can’t Take It Any Longer!

THE OTHER day a man said in anger, “I’ve had it! I’m through!” And I said to myself, “This kind of talk has been the obituary of many an otherwise great person.” He couldn’t take it any longer; or so he said. Of course, it wasn’t true at all. He could have taken it clear on to the end, if his inner braces had been stronger than the outer pressures. All of which causes me to think of Demas, the young man who once accompanied Paul on one of his missionary journeys. I think the youth organization of Demas’ local church had a going-away party for him, and probably presented him with a set of matched luggage. He must have been at that time the most outstanding, talented young man in his church and there must have been a certain amount of glamour in thus being chosen as Paul’s assistant. But the shine and shimmer soon disappeared, and Demas was right down to the hard facts of life, enduring hunger, hardship persecution, weariness, and probably a large dose of homesickness. So the day finally came when he said, “I’ve had it! I’m through! I can’t take it any longer. I’m going home.” And back he went to Thessalonica and the marts of trade, where things would be much, much easier for him at least in a financial way.

Of course, there are some things to be said in the young man’s favor. Demas had become a Christian, and at a time when to do so was to invite trouble. And he had answered a call to special service in the church. He had shown the courage to leave home and family and job, to launch out into a very uncertain future as the companion of an itinerant evangelist who was backed by no supporting board or society. He had deliberately gone out to live this kind of hand-to-mouth life without promise of support from any source whatsoever. So give Demas some credit. He had gone, had served, had shared the hostility and loneliness, the poverty and uncertainty. But unfortunately for him and for history, he couldn’t take it. The constant grind of life finally got him down and he lost heart and courage. It isn’t hard to understand the pull of the world on Demas; yet you always hate to see a man give up the fight and surrender to enemy circumstances.

Demas still lives in the experience of thousands of church people today—people who have lost heart, tossed in the sponge, and quit. They are defeated and down. You see, the great battles of life are fought in the heart, not outside; in the spirit, not in circumstances. To maintain faith and courage, hope and optimism; to believe when others doubt and are trying to convince you of the foolishness of holding on—this is the battle. And who can win the fight if he removes his eyes from Christ the author and finisher of his faith? Peter walked on the water toward Jesus until he shifted his gaze toward the boisterous waves.

Every person has to find for himself a divine source of grace and strength. There comes a time when nobody can hold you up but God; and even he can’t do it unless your trust is implicitly in him. The church cannot save you, no matter how glorious its history or how concerned its people. In fact, it is church people who sometimes give us our greatest cause for discouragement. Careless Christians have thrown thousands of stumbling blocks in the way of their brethren. And again, it is easy for us to forget all the saints in the church when we begin centering our eyes on some mealy-mouthed, brazen hypocrite who insists on warming himself at the church’s fireside; especially if, without commission or permission, he has caught up one of the church’s banners and is parading with the righteous all through the community.

If you aren’t careful, after some time of this you will find yourself saying, “What a rotten church!” when you haven’t been looking at the church at all but at a hypocrite who is not in the slightest way a part of the spiritual body of Christ. You can fasten your eyes on the hypocrite so long, and with such hypnotic distaste, that your thinking becomes distorted and your courage seeps away into the sands of doubt and distrust. Jesus said that in the last day many would say, “Lord! Lord!” only to have him reply, “I never knew you.” Get your eyes off the hypocrite and begin admiring that wonderful child of God who for years has been living such an exemplary Christian life in your community.

You can look at the weaknesses of people until you forget the strength and holding power of the “everlasting arms.” You can center your attention on the hypocrite until he assumes the size and power of a Goliath in your mind. You can look at the discouragement of a disturbed, but vocal minority, until the heart goes out of you and you begin to think that the whole church is lost. You can focus on the inconsistencies of weak, failing people until you yourself become weak and ineffective in your service to Christ. You can brood over how little other people are giving of their means for the support of the work of God until you are too discouraged to keep up your own generous giving.

Watch out, Christian! Satan is after you. This is dangerous territory on which to stand. Discouragement is a road which runs right straight to Thessalonica. Get your eyes off other people and gaze again into the understanding, loving face of the Man of Galilee. The church is not going down. Nor is it overflowing with hypocrites. It is still Christ’s church, and “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

So you think you can’t take it any longer. Can’t you? Who said so? What is your real trouble, others or yourself? So many times the real trouble is not “hypocrites in the church” at all, but a lack in our own relationship to God and his people. Have you become careless or inconsistent in your Christian profession of faith? Have you sinned against the Lord? You may think your problem is financial, but perhaps the real need is for a greater faith in the God who is able to supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. Did your problems come from other people, actually, or from your own heart? Be absolutely honest in answering. Remember, no man is dependent upon others for his standing before God. The kind of Christian you become depends on you, not on others. You can pray whether they do or not. You can live close to God even if the whole human race is moving in the opposite direction. You can be Christ-like even if everyone around you acts as if he were filled with the devil. You can love and be kind when relatives and neighbors are surly, thoughtless, and unkind. YOU CAN TAKE IT! By God’s grace you can take it! Hold on and be true and the storm will pass.

But there are those who think they can’t take it—can’t take the sickness, the adversity, the reputation of their local congregation; can’t take this particular pastor or his interminable sermons, can’t take his wife’s personality, can’t take the choir, the soloist, the organist, the Sunday school teacher, or “that dumb board of trustees.” Why? Is everything wrong with them, but nothing wrong with you? Why can’t you take it? To whom do you really belong? Have you no strength outside yourself from which to draw in a time like this? Whom do you serve? What is your commission? Who is your captain? Where is your loyalty centered? Whatever happened to the “everlasting arms”? Are you blaming people for your predicament when the fault lies at your own door? Are you saying it is the other man’s fault when the lack of love is in your own heart? Had Demas possessed a greater love for Christ and souls, he never would have allowed Paul to go on alone. Lack of love was his most basic problem. I fear there are people today who serve the Lord, as did the hungry thousands in Jesus’ time, for the loaves and fishes, and when these are gone, they depart also. At the first smell of the smoke of battle, some soldiers disappear.

So you can’t take it any longer! Yes, you can! Daniel did, and the three Hebrew children. So did Paul and millions of others who went to their death true to the faith—men like the missionary Dr. Paul Carlson, who there in the Congo could have escaped, but stayed on at his humanitarian tasks only to be executed by enemies of freedom. Yes, you can take it! You can take the poverty if you must. You can take the persecution, the misunderstanding; the hardship. You can say with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ” (Phil. 4:13). But to do so successfully you need a liberal outpouring of God’s Spirit upon your life every day. Get your manna fresh from him every morning. Love your brethren with the very love of God, then set yourself to do his will whatever the cost. You can take the trouble at home. You can take the philandering of wife or husband. You can take the trouble at work. You can handle those problems, which have caused so much unrest at your church. You can take the inconsistent behavior of people who call themselves Christians but are so lacking in the true spirit of Christ. You can take anything life throws your way and come back for more, for you are standing not in your own strength, but in the might and power of an omnipotent God, and he has promised never to leave you, never to forsake you.

So again, get your eyes off people and center them on Christ. Don’t make Christ pay for the misdeeds of others by withdrawing your loyalty from him. Take a good, fresh hold on the promises of God and hold on. Our God is a great God and will never fail you. Dare to be true. Dare to manifest the spirit of Christ in everything you do and say, and he will stand with you in every stormy trial. You will have your reward in heaven. Remember, as I have said on the radio so many times during the years, the Christian never quite reaches the breaking point. He can always hold on five minutes longer! You can grow in grace even when standing squarely in the center of a very fiery furnace.

Or you can say, “I can’t take it any longer!” and drop out of sight somewhere in your own private Thessalonica, living in self-pity and weakness the rest of your days. My advice is, Stand up and live! Dare to be true! It pays the most wonderful dividends by way of God’s blessings and in the maintaining of your own self-respect.

CHAPTER 16 - Why Shouldn’t It Happen To You?

ARE WE expecting the Lord to coddle us, to remove all thorns from every rosebush, and all stones from every path? Sometime ago a Christian Brotherhood Hour listener poured out a story of grief, loneliness, and heartache, then concluded by asking, “Why should all this happen to me?” I didn’t say what was on my mind at the time, but my first impulse was to answer, “Why shouldn’t it happen to you? It happened to Christ, to all the disciples, and to millions of Christians who gave their lives in martyrdom. Are you different? On what grounds would you like to claim exemption?”

Anyhow, where did we pick up the idea that happiness is the normal lot of humanity, that trouble and grief are intruders? This isn’t the case at all. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). How can happiness be looked upon as the norm when sin is so universal in our world, and unhappiness the natural harvest of man’s depravity? Heart-breaking experiences are the lot of all of us, and few arrive at the age of fifty without experiencing the torture of cruel grief, or the blasting of some cherished dream. Jesus said to his disciples, “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). Then he added, “But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The tribulation is inevitable, and bound to come to all of us now and then; but overcoming power is available every day and in the face of the sternest need.

My conversation with the radio listener set me to thinking about things such as heart attacks, cancer, and other serious illnesses; the possibility of being crippled or killed by some tragic accident. Who knows when trouble will strike? Cancer is on the increase and may appear at any time. Heart disease is taking an alarming number of lives, and even if it does not cause death, a heart attack forces a complete rearrangement of one’s way of life. I drive thousands of miles a year and do a considerable amount of flying. Will a drunken driver cripple or kill me some day? Will my name be posted on a casualty list following a plane crash? Will cancer come, or a heart attack? Only God can answer these questions in advance, but if or when one of these does come to me, and it certainly is a possibility, shall I ask, “Why should it happen to me?”

Well, why shouldn’t it happen to me? It happens to others. Am I better than they? Can I claim exemption on some peculiar grounds? Do I think myself worthy of some special exemption from the working out of nature’s laws of cause and effect? The Bible says, “It is appointed unto man once to die,” so some day I am going to die. How or when I do not know. Is this a tragedy? What attitude should I take toward this dim-but-not-too-distant event? Well, this is the way I face it, and I hope you are doing the same. First, I place my life wholly and completely in the hands of God and leave it there. Then I say with Jesus on the cross, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” I am no longer my own, but his. I am his servant, his son, and I know beyond all shadow of doubt that he loves me. I have the promise “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Also, I know that into whatever land I journey, my Lord will go before me. Whatever I face, he will know and be there. Whatever comes, there will be enough grace to sustain me. No matter what the threat, the assurance of his keeping power will uphold me.

Since Jesus trod the winepress alone, as the Bible puts it, certainly he knows and sympathizes in the lonely isolation of those who are in trouble, those desperately ill or face to face with death. Hasn’t he already taken “the loneliest journey”? He knows what the road is like, how deep the river at the crossing, and what is on the other side. And he whispers, “Because I live, you shall live, also.”

So again, why shouldn’t it happen to me? It happened to Paul, and he was probably the most outstanding Christian of the first century. He knew in advance that he was going to die; yet when the moment came, he went into eternity without complaint, facing the ordeal like the soldier he was, saying, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:7–8).

We Christians must die, just as everyone must die. Is this tragedy, or triumph? In any case, we are not exempt. Christians must suffer pain, must sometimes be crippled by accidents, just like anyone else. We are not exempt from trouble. “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” said Jesus (see John 16:33). Most of us wish he had said, “Live for me and your troubles are over,” but he didn’t. Our heavenly Father did say of the man who loves him, “I will be with him in trouble” (Ps. 91:15). What good is a man until he is tested? How can our muscles find strength unless burdens are placed upon them?

What a difference there is in the way people face trouble! Some curse, rant, and rave about being treated unjustly; or protest that God doesn’t love them, that he refused to hear their prayer. God owes me nothing; yet I will be unable to face trouble as I should, unless his love abides in my heart, and there is a firm faith in my soul. Parents need to remember this when a wayward son or daughter breaks their hearts. But don’t blame God for the unholy carrying on of an alcoholic husband or a flirtatious wife. The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; yet God, in his infinite love and wisdom, does not see fit to strike dead transgressors who spurn his mercy. So we sometimes have to put up with them right in our family circle, and call upon God with broken hearts for a full measure of his available grace. I’ve watched a good many people wade through the deep and muddy waters of trouble, and none has done well if his heart was clouded with sin, censure, or self-pity. But when one’s trust is fixed solidly in God, he is always there to carry the heavy end of the load.

Many things happen to us in this life, the reasons for which we cannot now understand. In such a time it is wonderful to be able to trust and hold on to God, to place your life in his capable hands without reservation or explanation, and abide there. We need to go through life neither asking for nor expecting to be spared the hardship, sickness, and disappointments, which come to the family next door. Yet when these things come, we shall be sustained by love, and shall endure through faith. We can’t expect, with our finite minds, to understand everything in this life. God does not see fit to share all of his knowledge with mortals, but saves some revelations of truth, and some explanations of earthly events, till that morning when eternity shall dawn. “Now we see through a glass, darkly;” said Paul, “but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Let me ask it again, why shouldn’t trouble, hardship, disappointment, and sorrow come to me—and to you, since all these things have been common to man from the beginning of time? Even the Son of God, suffered; first, the slights and anger of men, then, Gethsemane and Calvary. If God’s only Son had to suffer, shall I seek to be exempt? On what grounds? If Stephen was called upon to lay down his life for Christ, shall I expect “flower-strewn pathways, all my life through”? Why? Tell me, why? If all the disciples, save one, met violent death for Christ’s sake, and the gospel’s, shall I think it strange if I am called upon to suffer for the truth? Should you? Why shouldn’t it happen to you? Of course, the most important thing in life is not, what happens to you, but how you take it, how you use it. Centuries ago a Christian martyr was being burned to death, slowly, on a heated grill. When he had been thus tortured for some time, but was still conscious, he said humorously, “Would you like to turn me over? This side is done.” He was in possession of his soul, and his soul was in possession of a quality of grace, which lifted him completely above what his tormentors were doing to him. God’s grace is sufficient. You can trust that it will remain true in any emergency life may bring upon you. Paul said, “We glory in tribulations” (Rom. 5:3). Do you? It isn’t easy, but it is better to glory than to shed tears of self-pity or to “curse God and die.” It is better to glory than to despair. It is better to glory than to go down in defeat.

When I feel the need of extra support for my soul, I find it in two ways: exercising my Christian franchise in prayer, and perusing the holy Scriptures. In the Eleventh Psalm, verse 3, David asked, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Well, if the foundations are destroyed, we should go right on trusting God, remaining true to the best we know, waiting in patience for the arm of the Lord to be revealed. How many times Christians have been falsely accused and imprisoned for their faith! Paul was. The “finest kind of saints” have been put to death in gas chambers. Godly people have been stripped of their possessions and boycotted through false accusations. Why shouldn’t it happen to you? Or me? Are we better than those of the early morning church? Can we honestly say that God “owes” us something better? Is God in debt to us because we have promised to serve him? Never! We are rather in debt to him, and ought to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

God bribes no man to serve him by promising immunity from trouble, by offering wealth or houses and lands to the faithful. We are told that our bread and water will be sure. However, those who follow Christ for the loaves and fishes will fall by the wayside when the food runs out, just as they did when Jesus walked the earth. We are not hirelings, bartering with God, promising so much service for so much grace or so much protection. We are the sons and heirs of God, princes of the royal blood; but although this divine nobility is in our veins, the time will come when we, too, shall suffer as others have suffered, and shall endure the trials and tribulations common to our sainted fathers before us. Yet, in Christ there is strength for each day, power to endure, courage to be true, and even “dying grace.”

What has God promised that he has not done? Has he ever failed you? He did not promise to keep you from trouble, but to be with you in trouble. Did he keep his word? Has he ever forsaken you when you were obedient and trusted in him? Has he ever been deaf to your call, or powerless to help when you stepped out boldly to trust him with all your heart? In the Fifty-Second Psalm verse one, David exulted, “The goodness of the Lord endureth continually.”

You can take it! You can take whatever life sends your way, strengthened by the power of God. Hold fast to his promises, be steady and true, and God will bring you out. Paul said, “We both labor and suffer because we trust in the living God” (1 Tim. 4:10). Keep your trust in that living God, even when everything is going wrong. Dare to be true. Dare to be obedient to the heavenly vision, and God will never forsake you. And when you are at last called upon to die, let it not be with whimpering and complaining, or with finding fault with the Lord. Die like a saint! Die in the faith! Die in the Lord! Die in triumph, holding tightly and serenely to God’s unchanging hand. Why shouldn’t it happen to you?

CHAPTER 17 - How To Handle Your Anxieties

HOW LONG has it been since you said to a troubled friend, “Don’t worry, everything will come out all right”? You may have been quite sure of what you were saying, or you may have said it just with the hope of bringing cheer. But this is a tough world, and there is a great deal of unhappiness, trouble, and tragedy in it. The Christian lives by faith. He believes in God, God’s love and keeping power. He is sure that “in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom. 8:28).* But some folk misquote this passage and say that everything works for good, anyhow. But that isn’t what Paul said. He said that everything works for good with those who love the Lord. When you see a young man throwing his life away through sinful living, you have no justification for saying, “Don’t worry. He’ll come out all right.” This is why Christians carry a holy concern for the redemption of the lost. You can’t see a dissolute neighbor or relative throwing his life away and not be deeply concerned about it. You can’t stand by unmoved as the young girl next door mortgages her entire future in blind rebellion against parental discipline.

This is a world of trouble. “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). And a great deal of our trouble is of a kind, which does not disappear by ignoring it. Sensitive persons cannot remain aloof and untroubled by the heartbreak and anguish of those near and dear to them. It breaks our hearts to see a friend recklessly throwing away virtue, morality, decency, honor, a mature sense of responsibility. You can’t close your eyes to the unchristian people in your neighborhood, the unforgiven; the unrepentant. When you see what sin and carnality are doing to distort judgment, twist personalities, and destroy families, who can remain uncaring? We are anxious and troubled about such folk, just as we would be anxious about a man about to be swept over a falls in a rowboat.

Again, trouble isn’t just local; it is clear across the country and around the world. The newspapers scream headlines about war, atrocities, violence, murder, strife between races, rape, robbery, corruption in government, catastrophes, greed, rioting, arson, and man’s general inhumanity to man. Not to notice these things, and not to care would be to repress the constructive workings of a Christian conscience. Of course we care! And yet, we can’t afford to let the world and its problems, our neighbor’s problems, the problems of members of our own families, get us down. Where is the dividing line between having problems and becoming the unwilling victims of anxiety? If we become the victims of unrelieved worry and apprehension, these will rob us of happiness, peace of mind, joy in the Lord, and perhaps even physical health.

How many anxieties are of our own making! Those caused, for example, by a guilty conscience. Nothing is calculated to produce sleeplessness more quickly. No one can get away from what he has been and done except by honestly repenting of it and asking the forgiveness of God. I remember the woman who came perilously near to a nervous breakdown a few years ago because for a long time she had been covering up a considerable amount of guilt. She may have loved her husband, but he was a traveling man, and gone days at a time on business trips; so she formed a habit of relieving her loneliness and boredom by carrying on a clandestine affair with another man. She was just “playing around” and had no intention of leaving her husband. Then one day while her lover was with her in the house, news came of the death of her husband. So the opportunity of confessing to him and making things right was lost forever. As a result, she became increasingly nervous and filled with a deep anxiety.

Another minister tells a similar story of a couple who quarreled violently one night over a coming visit by the wife’s mother. Then the wife died that very night. The quarrel of the night before took on new proportions in the husband’s mind as he remembered that his last words to her were angry and unkind. You see, we cause so much of our own anxiety by thinking and living carelessly, selfishly, and outside the approval of God.

I am not a psychiatrist and make no claim to being much of a psychologist, but after many years of pastoral experience, there are a few suggestions, which come to mind as to how our anxieties can be brought under control. First of all, we must find a clear conscience. Paul told Timothy that he could wage a good spiritual warfare by holding “faith in a good conscience” (1 Tim. 3:9). In Hebrews 9:14 we are told that it takes the blood of Christ to purify conscience and rob it of its power to condemn. But, as Paul suggested to Titus, minds and consciences can be corrupted; and when this happens, one can expect to be victimized to some degree by anxiety. This is God’s way of bringing us to think more seriously about our conduct so that we will be brought to change our ways. Jesus came from heaven to earth to provide a way by which this burden of sin and guilt could be lifted from our hearts. When, through repentance and faith, we experience full forgiveness, the basic cause for many of our anxieties fades away. In 1 John 3:21 we read, “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” And note this word in Hebrews 10:22, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience…” When one’s conscience is carrying a burden of guilt, the first step toward peace of mind is to go to God in full confession and repentance.

Second, if you are to free your heart of many of the anxieties others experience, the God whom you trust must become very real to you, and very great. You must be fully convinced of his omnipotence, his ability to take care of you under every circumstance. A vital, strong, living faith in God is an absolute essential if you would know freedom from anxiety. I am reminded of the faith of my own sainted father. What a quiet, unassuming confidence he had in God. Till the day of his death he never lost the assurance that God was with him, guiding him, and would take care of him to the end. So he was calm when others were upset, confident when others gave way to worry, relaxed when many were tense and afraid. Have faith in God, for without it, peace will evade you. Then add to your faith a genuine, warm love for him. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27). Generally speaking, faith produces love; and, contrariwise, love produces faith. The two intertwine and strengthen each other. How wonderful it is to love the Lord with all your heart, to be able to trust him whatever happens. The Bible says, “There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18). Since fear is one of the greatest manufacturers of anxiety, love has a great deal to do with whether or not you have peace of mind. If you love the Lord with all your heart, you will trust him without fear. Worry, fear, and anxiety are evidence that trust is weak.

Fourth, to combat anxiety, you need patience, and a great deal of it; but isn’t patience the manifestation of a certain kind of faith? Patience and anxiety fight each other, but patience and piety mix well; for when you are (really) trusting the Lord, you are able to wait. New Testament translators often used the words patience and steadfastness interchangeably. If you would do your part to be free of anxiety, let your allegiance to Christ be solid as a rock, with no reservations, no wavering, and no inconsistency in your protestations of fidelity and loyalty. Insincerity will of itself produce anxiety. So in all honesty, give up to God the trying circumstances of life, the persecutions that “come your way”. Don’t fret over undeserved criticism or waste time feeling sorry for yourself. “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” (Ps. 119:165). This is the kind of peace that defeats and conquers anxiety, the trust that cancels out fear.

Fifth, to combat anxiety, develop a strong confidence in the power of prayer. It will change your life and sustain you in every time of need. Prayer has played a vital role in the life of every radiant, victorious Christian. How can anxieties control you or fill you with fear after you have just given them up to God in a satisfying prayer-conversation with him? A woman said recently, “Last night I had a terrible fright, but after I prayed all the fear left me.” Job surely must have been a praying man, else how could he have ever said of the Lord. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15)? The right kind of enlightened prayer will enable you to take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. In prayer you will find the ability to lay at his blessed feet all your anxieties, worries, cares, and fears, knowing that he is more than able to deal with every one of them.

Do you need release from plaguing anxieties? Practice the peace and presence of God. Find little islands in your day for quiet, meditation and prayer. Don’t neglect your Bible. Read especially the Psalms and Gospels, saturating your soul in the spirit of the Word, resting your heart in the promises of God. Read the Bible until it becomes experience in your soul. There is healing for mind and soul in a constant perusal of the living Word.

Last: combat anxiety with enthusiasm. Take life on tiptoe. Refuse to brood on the evil and give your mind to that which is good, pure, and wholesome. Find something worth living for and give yourself to it with all your heart. Trouble? Of course you will have trouble, but you can learn how to use it in a way that will bring victory and spiritual growth. One optimistic woman said, “I just took those troubles in my two hands and put them into the big hands of God, and together we handled them.” That’s the way to handle them—you and God—together. Not you alone against a big, bad world, but you and God. Such a partnership is more than a match for the greatest of troubles and anxieties. Trust God, and be not afraid!