Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled Jn 14:27 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

The Lord gave his disciples peace and told them, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. There are times when your heart is so troubled over a matter that it dominates your prayer life, your Bible reading and your daily fellowship with the Lord.  Stress over these matters gets so high that it will harm you and so you must deal with it appropriately to protect your health, your mind and your fellowship with the Lord.  Put it out of your mind before you go out of your mind.

Here’s how to let not your heart be troubled:

Pray and ask God for help – you may need to pray and pray to sort this out with the Lord – whatever you do, don’t react to your heart or your mind – only respond to the Lord and follow what he shows you to do – the peace of God is very important here because when you are following him there will be peace and when you aren’t there won’t be peace – if you pray sufficiently, the Lord will help you to do the right thing.

Rejoice in the Lord – Phil 4:4 – the Lord has been so good to you and there are many blessings in your life for which you can thank him – these blessings are often overshadowed in the wake of all the discord of the trouble through which you are currently going – don’t let any trouble “capsize your boat” – rejoicing in the Lord is excellent ballast to keep your “boat upright.”

Turn your mind to good thoughts – Phil 4:8 – trouble consumes most, if not all, of your heart and mind – when you “force” yourself to think about the things in Phil 4:8, you keep from running to the lies and exaggerations of your imagination as you contemplate how your situation is going to turn out – when the first thought of your trouble comes back cut it off immediately – once you start thinking about it again, often you cannot stop until you are nearly crazy – put it out of your mind before you go out of your mind.

Patiently relieve the stress – the stress associated with these kinds of things can be so bad that it will affect the way you see everything else – it can affect your attitude toward God – it can affect how you react to what others say – it can affect your relationships with others – when your body builds up the stress it causes you to think about what’s bothering you – this starts a vicious cycle that goes like this – I’m not thinking about it, I’m feeling stressed, why am I feeling stressed, oh I remember, it’s the trouble – and then you have to fight to get your mind off of it again only to repeat the cycle – you have to patiently relieve the stress so that you can let it go without riding this merry-go-round.

Counsel with someone close to you – you must trust someone in spite of the fact that you probably will not like what he or she has to say – this person must be honest enough with you to tell you the truth and to not take your side just because he or she loves you – and he cannot validate any of your feelings that are based upon your embellished reactions.

Wait on the Lord – the Lord will work out the circumstances but you must give him time to handle it just right – and often this takes more time than you want and more patience than you have – just trust him to sort it all out – he will.

Confront the situation if directed by the Lord – in this case you must get past the fear and confront the person who is causing you the grief – when you do, get right to the point and don’t give him any explanation that could be used in retaliation against you – be sure your “counselor” agrees.

Walk away if directed by the Lord – in other words, you need to let God deal with the trouble without you doing anything more than praying about it – in this case, when you think about it there is nothing that you can do or say that will make the trouble change – you just have to wait it out until the person involved makes the change – this is often true in the case of wayward teens.

Learn the lesson the Lord teaches you – often the Lord uses these circumstances to teach you something, to strengthen you and to prepare you to help others through similar trouble – always learn the lesson – make sure you do because you may find yourself in a similar situation in the future and you don’t want to have to learn the lesson again.

Conclusion: Let not your heart be troubled – follow these simple guidelines and the Lord will help you through each trial.