Many who are experiencing fear, anxiety or depression depend on people, food, drugs and pleasurable diversions to stay strong. However, once we understand we are precious in God’s sight and greatly loved by Him, we can handle emotional turmoil better.
Many who are facing emotional turmoil—fear, anxiety or depression—depend on “external props”such as people, food, drugs, favourable circumstances and pleasurable diversions to keep them chugging along in life.
Mood swings may be a prominent feature in their lives: One moment they may feel on top of the world but, the next moment, they may feel that the world is crumbling around them.
Without a stabilising factor within our souls, it’s understandable that we will run to all sorts of “external props” to overcome our fears and anxieties or cheer us up when we are depressed.
But, I believe, we will be able to handle emotional turmoil better if we appreciate the fact that we are precious in God’s sight and greatly loved by Him.
Can we grasp the fact that He is the One who chose us to be His beloved—by demonstrating His love towards us?
He chose us, He loved us—even when we were unlovable.
- But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
- In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).
- You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you (John 15:6).
Can you imagine the almighty God saying to Himself one day: I choose to bless these people though they are sinners or rejected by others? He picked us up, cleansed us and loved us. Far from being deemed as outcasts, we now enjoy a glorified status. We also have a new identity, calling and destiny.
- Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you werecast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.
- “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
- “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made myvow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.
(Ezekiel 16:1-8)
- But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
(1 Peter 2:9-10)
- And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the age of this world and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among them we all also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and He raised us up and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:1-6)
To conclude, once we know we are loved and precious in God’s sight and have found our God-ordained purpose and destiny in life, we will be well-positioned to weather the storms of life that often wreak havoc on our emotions.
Love is the greatest balm for aching souls. Once we are able to understand, by faith, the immensity of His love for us, we are better equipped to overcome adversity (Ephesians 3:17-20).
Remember that He will never forsake those who know Him and His empowering grace is sufficient for those who depend on Him (Hebrews 13:5b, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 2 Peter 1:3).
REFERENCES
… so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us …
(Ephesians 3:17-20)
“I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5b)
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Corinthians 12:9).
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:3).
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ABOUT Author: Dr Lim Poh Ann is a medical practitioner. He was the former editor of Asian Beacon magazine (December 2008 – October 2011). He can be reached at his blog, Porridge for the Soul
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