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Between our 24-hour news cycle and social media, it’s pretty easy to find ourselves overwhelmed by anxiety, fear, and hopelessness. The struggles of today, the worry of tomorrow threaten to drown us in despair—even those who believe in Jesus.

Fear and uncertainty have the potential to throw us off balance mentally and emotionally. How often do we allow the climate of our society and the world around us to dictate our mood, feelings, and outlook?

Paul asked the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31 NKJV). He proceeds to argue that if God didn’t withhold His Son, but offered Him for us, then what have we to fear? He asks in verse 35, “Shall tribulations, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” separate us from the love of Christ?

All of these trials posed real threats to the Roman believers, yet Paul reasons with them that in spite of those things (note he didn’t say they wouldn’t experience them), they could not be separated from the love of Christ. He continues, “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:38-39 RSV).

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Let that sink in for a moment. Not famine, pestilence, or pandemic. Nothing. Not peril, sword, principalities, or elections. Nothing. Not social and racial unrest. Nothing. Not the present, nor the future, not even death. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Then why are we so fearful? Why, as believers, do our anxieties so often mirror the world in which we live? We may like to claim verses of Scripture, maybe even these verses in Romans 8, yet we live overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.

Do you believe He is for you? Do you believe that He is also for the person on the other side of the street that you don’t agree with? He is.

Faith cannot coexist with worry. You may say you believe that God is for us and that nothing can separate us from His love, but does your life align with this truth?    

Do you find yourself wrapped daily in the truth that God is for you? If so, then the worry and anxiety within our world should not affect our mood or feelings. Our fearful world looks for those who walk in peace in the midst of chaos. Maybe that, more than anything else, can testify to an anxious world the reality of a God who is for us.

PRAYER

Father, You are for me; You are for us. Help us today to walk in the truth of that realization and may our peace in chaos testify to Your love and bring glory to Your name. Amen.