“I don’t want to talk to anyone now! I’m just one person, I don’t want to talk now! I’m tired of all these stresses! I’m just coming in now and everything is stressful! Joshua is bringing his books for the assignment, and the mechanic is downstairs waiting for me, Ugoo said the car has not been fixed and he is waiting for money to go home. All the money spent yet the car is not working! What’s all this? Please I don’t want to talk now!”
The above were the words I was hearing on the phone call I made to my wife from overseas to know how she and the family were doing, as I’ve been away for a while. She was frustrated due to the stress in the country and all the issues around her which included her business needs as an event planner and caterer which is always demanding and pressuring. The prices of things have soared through the roof.
All I could say to her was, calm down! , it’s well! knowing that it has not been easy staying in a country where virtually everything goes haywire, forcing 90% of the people into an erratic mental state.
The majority of the population is facing untold hardship and deprivations. Ranging from the bad economy that has made it very scarcely possible for people to afford the three major human needs such as food, clothing and a roof over their heads, to abject lack of infrastructure and climaxed by the coexisting condition of anxiety and fear hatched by untold insecurity. Gridlocks on the road due to the lack-of and dilapidated public road networks and the fear of being robbed or attacked by desperate hoodlums. (There are also many good things in the country, please quote me not wrong)
No one can be mentally stable in that kind of situation if there is no stronger invisible and invincible hand holding them and paving way for them.
Even the greedy politicians who supererogatorily amassed their wealth by stealing, coveting and converting the government funds meant for the people into their own private coffers, home and abroad, are not exempted from the lunacious predicament owing to the fact that they also are anxious due to insecurity that exists even at their doorsteps.
Listening to my wife and pondering on her predicaments, I could understand how it feels while back home but I always remember that God has a way of providing succour and comfort even in the midst of the precarious environment and situations.
My mind went to the saying that “WITHOUT CHRIST, YOU HAVE CRISIS” and I always likened this saying to the madness that is going on not just in my country but prevalent as well in many places around the world.
On What should someone anchor his hope and trust in order to navigate through these tempestuous and tough times that are driving many crazy and causing many to opt to die than live?
The answer is God. God is the ultimate power who created everything. He allows and stops everything at his will and according to his plans and purpose.
1 Samuel 2:6-10 (KJV)
6 “The Lord brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
on them he has set the world.
9 He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
“It is not by strength that one prevails;
10 those who oppose the Lord will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
“He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
The power to stop every bad situation and turn it around as a blessing to his people is in the hand of the Almighty God. He has the power to stop any tempestuous storm. He has the power to bring peace in the midst of trouble. He is the all-knowing, all-powerful and God that is everywhere. He has no limitations to what he can do. In fact, there is nothing God can not do and there is no problem he can not solve.
I remember the story in the Bible, Matthew 8:23-27
“23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!”
When we are passing through tough and dangerous times, it is important that we make God our anchor and let him do his job which is always to deliver us and give us comfort.
It is in God that we have hope and assurance for good things even when the world is busy creating, fabricating and serving us more and more doses of troubles and stressful conditions. God said in Jeremiah 11:29 that he already knows his thoughts and plans for us which are good ones to give us a very good future and end. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
God is always our present help in times of need and tempestuous times – Psalm 46:1 (KJV) “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
The problem is that most times, we tend to forget that we have God as our father and He who formed us and knew where we will be at this period of time and already made a way of escape for us even before we were born.
God formed us and decided where we will be born and he knows that the country will be this way, and he already promised us that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
The solution to these perilous times is to make God our anchor. An anchor is that strong support that holds anything that anchors on it from swaying away by an external force. When God is our anchor, nothing on earth can sway us away from his plans and purpose for us which are all good plans and purposes.
Making God our anchor gives us rest, peace and comfort even in the midst of the troubles before us. We become like a tree that grows and has green leaves and bears fruits in a desert. Because there is an invisible and invincible hand that is holding, supporting and supplying our needs.
Psalm 46: 1- 5 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.”
When God is not our anchor, the crisis and stress of life will be beating directly on us because our hope and shield, which comes from God, are not on us. We are bare and helpless due to our own choice to ignore to make God as our anchor.
When we do not make God our anchor, we tend to play God and thereby feel that it is by our own strength that we can overcome the troubles of this world and that is when we start to feel stressed and stretched and sometimes we break. This is because the Bible says in 1 Samuel 2:9 (KJVA) “He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.”
To make God our anchor, we only need to remember that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour, and if we have not made Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior by recognising that He is the son of God and that He died on the cross of Calvary and paid the price for our sins and resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven and lives forever.
After we have made Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, we will now call on him to save us and then put our trust and hope in him that God who raised him from the dead shall through him deliver us also from any bad situation.
The bible says in Phillipians 4: 6-7 (KJV) “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
We make God our anchor by being positive and having faith in the word of God. Reading the bible and setting your mind on the word of God is a powerful way of staying positive and mentally stable even in the midst of glaring challenges.
Whenever the world is forcing you to bend to its pressures, you need to read the word of God and know what God is saying to you and meditate on those things.
It is when you start losing the knowledge of the word of God that the thoughts of the pressures take the greater part of you and make you lose your sanity and peace of mind.
God has shown in many ways that He is able to do things which we expect of him if we allow him and give him the time. To us, we will be looking at the problem and thinking that we can fix it right now and there or else everything will be over, but it is usually a lie from the devil because God has never been too late to save his people.
I have faced situations in my life that I thought would never have been fixed, and sometimes the only solution that comes to my mind is to take the worst decision, but by God’s grace in many of such situations I had decided to pray and let the will of God take place in that situation. If I perish I perish but I won’t do the worst thing that the devil is telling me to do. And I tell you the truth, that it always comes out with the best solution even effortlessly.
I have learnt to always remind myself that all things work together for the good of those that love God and I know that I love God and nothing else.
Romans 8:28 (KJV) “28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
I also remind myself of the saying which I made the way I preferred to say it “the darker the night, the brighter the morning.” which the word of God confirms in Psalm 30:5b “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
There is always a light at the end of the tunnel for those who anchor their hope in God.
Psalm 46:1-11 (KJV)
” 1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8 Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”
Published by Mr Obinna Ejianya (SMOG)
