Assurance

I was reading this morning out of "My Utmost for His Highest"; I'm not on daily schedule with this particular book so I was reading June 4th and 5th and he was talking about the assurance of God in our lives.

The base verses were out of Hebrews 13: 5-6 stating "'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. '" And I started thinking about what I was talking about before; leaning on what we know to be true and not our own feelings. In these two days, Chambers talks about where our thought lies, whether with truth that comes from God, or on our apprehension. I am queen of focusing on apprehension. I over analyze everything under the sun; and it's in that worry and constant analytical state that I lose site of Christ and his truth. Have you ever seen "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"? There is a part near the beginning when Robin (Kevin Costner) is trying to cross the river into Sherwood Forest and he is stopped by Little John. After fighting it out with big wooden rods, Robin eventually knocks Little John off the bridge into the water. OK, mental picture, Little John (if you have ever seen the movie you know he is not little, try like 6'6" and like 290 lbs. -guess) falls off the bridge and starts freaking out that he's drowning. You have to realize that this is a very real fear to Little John, he cannot swim and he is scared to death of deep water. In the midst of his hysterics, Robin looks down and yells "Stand up!". Little John stops flailing long enough to stumble and stand up; thus realizing he is in about three feet of water. This is such of picture of my life sometimes. I get knocked down by things and start freaking out because cannot get perspective on the situation; all the while the Lord is yelling down on me to "stand up". I forget truth, I forget the Lord's assurance that He "will never leave me nor forsake me". I let my fear and apprehension take hold of me and almost drown me.
In Matthew 14, Jesus walks on water, and as he is out there, Peter (our favorite loudmouth disciple ) asks Jesus to call him out onto the water. Starting in verse 29, "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" Is this not the same thing?!? The second Peter takes his eyes of Christ and put them on the fear and apprehension of his situation, he began to sink. How often do we take our eyes of Christ because we are so overcome by the circumstances of our situations? We will never walk safely out of those situations until we learn to lock eyes with Christ and let him lead us out of it; we will never walk out of them on our own.

There is a reason that the Lord says "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32) It is only when resting in his assurance and truth that we are exactly where He wants us to be. It is only there that we can be free from our own fear, apprehension, and doubt about where we are. To wrap it up, Oswald Chambers said:

"I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God’s words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God’s assurance— they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God’s assurance to us."