Well, like I mentioned in an earlier post, one of my dear, dear, dear friends and sister in Christ recommended the book You’re going to be Okay by Holley Gerth, and it has been such a blessing to me, that I decided to blog about my experience reading this wonderful little book. Of course, I’m not just going to re-write this book here on my blog. I’m simply going to meditate on the things that touch me the most. Since the book is proving to be really speaking to me, I anticipate this series to take a while.
Today, I wanted to write about the segment where the author talks about the fact that we are overcomers. We are! Jesus Himself told us so:
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16: 33
I’m not a native speaker of English, as you can tell, so I find myself consulting my good, old friends Merriam and Webster quite often. Today, I looked up a quick definition for the idea of overcoming. Here’s what I found:
1. to get the better of in a struggle or conflict; conquer; defeat: to overcome the enemy.
2. to prevail over (opposition, a debility, temptations, etc.); surmount: to overcome one's weaknesses.
Hmmm…
Pretty powerful word that is, isn’t it? To say that Jesus overcame the world is totally verifiable, acceptable and unquestionable. To say that I have overcome the world, however… yeah… not so much.
I look at my life… my every-day-life, and see nothing but defeat. My struggles, my day-to-day struggles drown me in worry, fear, anxiety, panic, and make me feel weak and often hopeless.
I am definitively a glass half-empty person. Actually, I am an empty glass person because even though the glass might still have water in it, I know, I see it already empty in my head...just waiting for someone to knock it over and not only spilling its content but shattering it into a million pieces.
Pathetic, I know… what can I say? This is my greatest struggle in life. To trust God enough to let go of my fears… to let go of the idea of control I have ingrained in my mind. And just let Him be God in my life… all of my life.
The good news is that Jesus does not leave us where we are. He moves us along in the path that He has designed for us. In my case, He usually drags me kicking and screaming, but He does get me moving. His power is made perfect in my weakness, remember? (2 Corinthians 12: 9) And boy, He is really strong, ‘cause I’ve got a lot of weakness in me…
The point is that, He speaks to me, through His word, through song and music, through the people He has placed on my road, through teachers, through books, so, here comes this book stating that:
“God’s victory in this world does not depend on you. It depends on one thing alone: Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection three days later. You can’t lose the war for God or for yourself. It’s not about you or me at all. We simply get to partake in the victory. That means there is no shame in losing a battle now and then. It means we are imperfect people in a broken world.” (page 26)
How I love these words!
Let’s take another look at what Jesus said, again:
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16: 33
He has done it all! He is not saying here that we have to do anything at all in order to overcome the world. He is telling us that He already has, so we don’t have to. He is telling us that all is left for us to do is to have peace in Him. Regardless of the troubles that we will have, ‘cause He does state the fact that we WILL have trouble, we can rest in Him and be at peace in the truth that He has already taken care of it all and we get to be a part of that victory that we did nothing to obtain. Therefore, I don’t have to worry about being ill-equipped or inadequate for the battle because He has already won the entire war all on His own!
It is mind-blowing! We get to win the war that we didn’t even have to fight. And it is all because Jesus fought it and won it all by Himself… for us…
How could I still be concerned, afraid, anxious or worried? Because I’m imperfect and live in a broken world…but He has overcome it, and He is here, reminding me of it so I can take heart again.
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