Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

John 14:27 (NASB)

Consider this: Jesus first spoke these words to His disciples on the verge of their most terrifying moment. They were, in their minds, about to lose Him forever. The story we know so well reveals they failed miserably in that moment in the matter of not letting their hearts be troubled.

Jesus knew they would, yet He spoke those words for you and me to have today.

I know what it is like to be staring at those words while overcome with the feeling there is no way I can keep my heart from being troubled. How does one make themselves not be afraid? Maybe you are stronger than I. On my own, I am a bit of a wimp and a caver.

Yet this I know and believe with all my heart: anything and everything Jesus commands, is possible. He never asks the impossible of us, nor promises the impossible. He never sets us up to fail. He promises that His peace is always available to you.

Why did His disciples fail? Because they did not yet have the Holy Spirit living within them. God’s entire plan and promise in the new covenant was to make a union possible between Himself and you. Once that happens, you have access to HIS strength. To His voice. To His everything.

If Jesus’ peace does not seem available, the first thing to do is challenge that lie. Understand that His peace is only hidden from your view, obscured by fears and worrisome thoughts. The fact that Jesus cautioned and commanded you to let not your heart be troubled, nor afraid means you can do something about that! You have a part to play in staying connected to that peace.

Worry is no small matter. Jesus taught that the great danger of worry is that it becomes like thorns in the field of your soul. God is always sowing His Word there, telling you truth, encouraging you, teaching you the way to His zoe life and fruitfulness. But worry chokes out God’s words if you let it. When that happens, all God has sown in you remains unfruitful:

And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. (Matthew 13:21-22 NASB)

Fruitfulness isn’t just about what you do for God and others. It includes what God grows in you, for you. The seeds He plants in you are meant to grow into a crop of joy, and peace, and confidence in God’s steadfast love.

Perhaps you only fret a little here and there, and don’t consider yourself to b a true worrier. The Word warns us about fretting too. In fact, it says fretting only leads to doing evil things:

Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Psalms 37:8-9 (NASB)

I’m pretty sure you can’t imagine yourself as an evildoer. Yet the Spirit warns that little things like fretting can add up and lead to big things that ruin your life, especially your life with God. The Spirit defines evildoing as any form of turning away from God. The point is, fretting, which we might call “worry lite,” is the opposite of your best option, which is to wait for the Lord.

The Hebrew for “wait” doesn’t mean to sit around idly. It is an action verb, visualizing you clinging madly to God, intertwining your life with His continually. It is the same as Jesus commanding you to action when He said, Don’t let your hearts be troubled.

He gave the command because even though He offers peace, you have a part to play in possessing it. When you cling madly to the Spirit of Christ, and renounce the lies that worry keeps rehearsing, you affirm the truth: that God is with you, and because of that, you have nothing to fear.

The truth is the best way to overcome a lie that wants to grip your heart. Meditate on the truth: God is with you. He loves you dearly. He is full of mercy, so even if you did something to invite the thing that worries you, don’t believe the lie that God won’t help you because you deserve it.

Even better, ask the Spirit to show you the most crucial truth you need to know to overcome the lies taunting you. You have the mind of Christ, so you can always know what God is thinking, Beloved. Tap into that, and even a little stone of God’s truth can take down the giant Goliath of worry in your mind.

Worry and fear choke the life and truth of God out of you, Beloved. But trusting and waiting on the Lord has a much better ending: as the Psalm says, you inherit the land. In other words, you get the prize, the best, your full inheritance, everything God is holding out to you.