How to Face Life’s Challenges

Scriptures: Luke 12:22-34, Matthew 13:22

How to Face Worry 

Whether it’s climate change, war, mounting bills, or who our kids are hanging out with at school – we’re all tempted to worry. Jesus understood this better than anyone, and only He can set us free from the fear, unease, or anxiety we live with. 

Most people are desperate for peace, and typically there are two ways they attempt to manage or eradicate worry in their lives. The first is to eliminate uncertainty by using their resources or influence to control events, circumstances, outcomes, or people. The second way people try to avoid worry is by withdrawing or detaching themselves from people or situations. They approach worry on the premise that if you don’t care about something, it can’t hurt you. This method doesn’t work, because we’re called and commanded to care about the people and places God has scripted into our stories. 

Jesus’ teaching on worry in Luke 12 is threefold: Firstly, He reminds His listeners that they’re creatures, like flowers and birds. They shouldn’t overestimate their responsibilities or importance – and neither should we. 

Secondly, He reassures them that they’re loved by their Creator, who promises to lavishly, and timeously, provide. (When we’re stressed about material possessions or physical provision for ourselves, Jesus also prescribes generosity as a remedy for worry. In Luke 12:33, He says, ‘Sell your possessions and give to those in need.’) 

And thirdly, Jesus charges His followers to prioritise the rule and reign of God in their lives, in every area. 

Think about which of these three approaches to worry is most applicable or challenging to you, in your current circumstances. Ask yourself: Do I sometimes forget my limitations? Do I forget that the truest thing about me is that my Heavenly Father loves me? Do I seek first God’s Kingdom, or mine?

Matthew 6:30-33 reads as follows in The Message: ‘If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers – most of which are never even seen – don’t you think He’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do His best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.’ May you be reminded that Jesus is your perfect provider and that as you hand over your worries to Him and seek Him above all others, He will fulfil His purposes for you.

Scriptures: John 21:1-19, Psalms 73:26

How to Face Failure 

Failure can tempt us to give up. Horrified or humiliated (by a disconnect between what we hoped would happen, and what actually happened), we feel unworthy to have another go at life. And yet, when Peter – Jesus’ friend and follower – messed up royally, Jesus’ response to Peter’s failure energised him and restored his hope and purpose. Jesus responds to our failures in just the same way. 

The truth is, failure might shock you, but it never shocks Jesus. In Peter’s case, Jesus had even predicted his failure (Matthew 26:34). When Jesus suggests that Peter is going to let Him down, Peter says the equivalent of, ‘Oh no, not me! Someone else might deny you. But me? Never!’ Maybe you can relate. Maybe you vowed never to do something – and then ended up doing it. Wonderfully, Jesus prices in your failures when He calls you. He paid the price for your sin – past, present, and future – and He bought the whole of you. All your success. All your failures. The magnitude of God’s love for you is incomprehensible: He pursues you, calls you, and uses you, despite knowing you will fail Him. 

Astonishingly, Jesus doesn’t waste Peter’s failure. Rather, He uses it to rekindle Peter’s devotion and ignite in him a passion for his calling. And we see from Peter’s life that, with Jesus, failure isn’t final. Perhaps Peter thought the best he could’ve hoped for was forgiveness – which would’ve been enough! But Jesus came to bring abundant life. Not only does He forgive Peter, but He restores him and uses him mightily to build His Kingdom. Peter’s failure doesn’t define him. Jesus’ love defines him. Don’t forget that your failure is an incident – not your identity. And don’t forget that your failure can’t thwart Jesus’ purposes for you or His restorative love. Jesus says to Peter, ‘But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to Me again, strengthen your brothers.’ (Luke 22:32) In other words, even before the moment of Peter’s failure, Jesus is anticipating his restoration and the fulfilment of God’s call on his life. Peter will end up leading and giving his life for, the first-century church. God’s purposes for your life don’t depend upon the perfection of your performance. 

Regardless of how dismally or disastrously you have failed, nothing you’ve done has taken God by surprise, and nothing you’ve done is too big to be covered by His unfailing grace. God promises to cause all things – even your mistakes, mishaps, misfortunes, and indefensible failures – to work together for your good, making you more like Jesus (Romans 8:28-29). Don’t lose heart. Your failure isn’t final. God is restoring and renewing you, day by day, and as Paul says, ‘our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!’ (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Scriptures: Luke 6:26-36, Proverbs 15:1, Romans 12:18

How to Love Your Enemies 

Talking about enemies might sound childish, military, political, or overly dramatic. We don’t often use the word ‘enemy’ at the office water cooler or when we’re out for dinner with friends. And yet, enemies are an unavoidable part of our human experience. Jesus never questioned whether we had enemies. He assumed we did (Luke 6:27), and He challenged us not only to face our enemies but also to love them. 

Interestingly, in Luke 6:26 Jesus implies that worse than having enemies is having no enemies at all. Pleasing everyone is impossible – and dangerous. The truth is, I don’t mind people rejecting me because of Jesus, but I don’t want anyone to reject Jesus because of me. Life’s too short to make enemies about things that don’t matter, but life’s too important to live in fear of ever making an enemy. We just need to get comfortable with turning the other cheek: a dignified way of acknowledging the hurt caused while graciously showing your commitment to fight for reconciliation. It’s a way of elevating – going high when your enemy goes low. This is way healthier than retaliating, escalating, or evacuating. 

Paul writes, ‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’ (Romans 12:18) If there’s someone in your life with whom it has proven impossible to live harmoniously, think about what it might look like, as far as it depends on you, to relate to that person in a peace-loving, dignified, kind, and honouring way. Maybe you just need to start by praying for them. When I was advised to pray for an enemy, the results were transformative (even though of course I didn’t feel like praying initially!). 

Thankfully, Jesus didn’t just sprout pithy sayings like, ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.’ (Luke 6:36) He actually lived everything He taught. Jesus showed unthinkable kindness to His enemies. Amidst the mayhem of being mobbed and arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, He healed the sliced-off ear of Malchus, the High Priest’s slave (John 18:10-11, Luke 22:51). In excruciating agony, He prayed for those who had driven the nails into His hands and feet (Luke 23:34). Jesus gave His life to turn His enemies into friends. 

God wouldn’t tell us to love and pray for our enemies if it wasn’t possible in His strength. Ask God to soften your heart, and to help you see your enemy the way He does. Trust Him for the courage it will cost you to show the kind of mercy that ushers in miracles.

Scriptures: Luke 6:37-45, James 4:11-12

How to Judge Less, Love More 

In a polarised world, it’s hard not to judge people who disagree with us or offend us. Ironically, even though we don’t want to be judged by others, we form perceptions of people all the time, often subconsciously, based on how they look, sound, or behave. We need wisdom to exercise good judgment when deciding whether we should trust people. But far more than that, we need Jesus’ teaching on how to judge less and love more. 

When it comes to us judging others, the first thing Jesus points out in Luke 6:37-45 is our limitations. We seldom, if ever, have the full story of someone else’s situation, which may powerfully affect their actions and reactions. You can probably think of a time when finding out more about someone’s circumstances changed your perception of them, and helped you not to judge them, right? Judging others makes us hypocrites because we tend to judge our own conduct based on our motives and intentions, but we judge other people’s conduct based on our perceptions, and then we just fill in the gaps. We’re excellent defence lawyers for our conduct and excellent judges for the conduct of others. 

Jesus explains that if you’ve got a plank stuck in your eye, it’s going to be impossibly hard to help someone else get a speck of sawdust out of their eye (Luke 6:41-42). You won’t have the gentleness, precision, or compassion to help someone effectively if you need even more help yourself. To avoid judging others, we need to know our blind spots. Becoming more cognisant of our faults vastly improves our relationships and interactions with people. We all need to get better at putting down the magnifying glass we hold up to others’ lives. Instead, we need to start picking up the mirror. 

In Luke 6, Jesus is saying more than just, ‘Don’t judge.’ He’s not saying, ‘Hands off anyone else! It’s none of your business.’ He’s explaining that we need to eradicate hypocrisy and toxic criticism from our lives so that we can draw near to others, show mercy on them, and really help them. This is what Paul talks about in Galatians 6:1: ‘…if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.’ 

We need God’s help to cleanse our eyes, so we can see people the way He sees them. As you walk closely to Jesus, may His Spirit graciously reveal your blind spots, so you can tenderly come alongside others to help them see theirs. If you’re struggling not to judge certain people, ask God to give you genuine understanding and deep affection for them, and good ideas of ways to love them instead of criticising them. And as Robert Murray M’Cheyne said, ‘For everyone look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.’ Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, judging less and loving more.

Scriptures: Matthew 5:21-26, Psalms 37:8, James 1:19-20

How to Face Anger 

Everyone gets angry – no matter how calm or relaxed you are by nature. Frustrations come. Difficulties build up. People agitate you. It’s impossible to go through life without ever feeling angry. The challenge is to be angry only in the right way, for the right reasons, at the right time, at the right things, and to the right extent. Jesus warned us of the danger of anger, yet we see that He got angry too – at death, and at religious leaders who led people astray. He was provoked, criticised, and insulted, yet He showed remarkable self-control, responding with gentleness and grace. Jesus is our perfect example of what Paul describes in Ephesians 4:26: ‘In your anger do not sin.’ 

In likening anger to murder, Jesus drew our attention to the truth that murder is just an outward, dramatic manifestation of anger, which begins within us. You may know someone – or live with someone – who takes out their anger on everything and everyone. Or perhaps you’ve experienced how your anger can spread from a focused point (the specific person or situation that has angered you) to an uncontrollable, widespread rage. Anger is a dangerous force we must learn to recognise and manage. 

There are two different kinds of anger: hot (outward, expressive, or explosive) and cold (inward, passive-aggressive, quietly seething or sulking). You probably recognise yourself as being more prone to one than the other. And of course, both kinds of anger are dangerous and detrimental to relationships. Anger releases cortisol, the fight-or-flight stress hormone. It reduces empathy and tends to objectify, overly simplistically, the person we’re angry with. We think things like, ‘They’re wrong. I’m right. They’re stupid. I’m clever. They’re mistaken. I’m right.’ It’s vital to give yourself time to cool off and get perspective when you’re angry (exercise, healthy eating, and a good night’s sleep are beneficial). Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes – and calm down – before you send the text or email, make the phone call, or confront them in some other way. 

Tim Keller says, ‘We get angry when something that we love is threatened.’ In other words, follow your anger, and you’ll find your loves. This is key to refining our anger. Anger reveals what we care about (like status, ego, or achievements), and sometimes those things were never designed to bear the weight of all our love and hope. When you’re angry because something you love is under threat, it helps to remember you’re infinitely loved by God, who is committed to your eternal good and whose purposes for your life can’t be frustrated. 

May our anger only ever be fuel for restoring relationships and seeking justice, and not a destructive means of protecting our interests. May we live grateful and humbled by the truth that Jesus came into a world full of anger, to bring love. He faced ouranger too. And He was willing to bear the anger of heaven so we would never have to fear it.

Scriptures: Matthew 4:1-11, 1 Corinthians 10:13

How to Face Temptation 

You have influence. There are people watching how you speak and behave. They’re looking to you for wisdom and insight – directly or inadvertently. Generally, as your influence increases, so do the tests and temptations you face. It’s important to note that Jesus isn’t tempted by Satan (Matthew 4) because He’s been doing something wrong. God the Father has just declared over Jesus: ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him, I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3:17) Immediately after this, the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, where He’s tempted. If you find yourself sorely tempted, it’s not necessarily because you’ve failed or stepped out of God’s will. Temptation may be a sign of your influence – a clue that you’re in exactly the right place. 

Temptation shows up in our own lives in all the same ways it plays out in Jesus’ wilderness temptation. The first temptation relates to our pursuits. The enemy tempts Jesus to pursue bread. Bread’s a good thing. But it would have distracted Jesus from absolute reliance on God. Ask God to help you see where you’re tempted to pursue a good thing – a possession, position, or person – that may distract you from what God’s calling you to pursue. It’s possible too that your success in a particular area has tempted you to be self-sufficient, overly confident in your abilities, or less reliant on God. The truth is, success can be harder to steward than suffering. 

The second temptation Jesus faces – and it’s one we face too – relates to others’ perceptions and expectations. The devil taunts Jesus, daring Him to leap off a building. Jesus doesn’t do it: He has nothing to prove; He knows who He is. Too often, we’re tempted to change our behaviour because of ideas others have of us, or we feel pressured to live up to someone’s opinion of us. To diffuse that temptation, rest in God’s opinion of you. 

The third temptation relates to position: seizing success without relying on God’s strength, ways, or timing. Satan offers Jesus the Kingdom without the cross, and we should be wary of influence that doesn’t cost us anything. (Have you ever witnessed someone prematurely grabbing hold of power or position? How did that work out for them?) 

Temptation is inevitable because we have a real enemy bent on our destruction and the undermining of God’s Kingdom. Paul reminds us, however, that God will always give us the offramp of a better choice when we’re tempted (1 Corinthians 10:13). Paul also urges us, ‘And do not give the devil an opportunity to lead you into sin by holding a grudge, or nurturing anger, or harbouring resentment, or cultivating bitterness.’ (Ephesians 4:27, Amplified Bible) Rather, ‘resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ (James 4:7) With God’s help, it is possible to overcome temptation. May God strengthen you and set you right where your motives for pursuing something have been skewed. May you have the clarity and resolve to be who God says you are, free from the pressure to be or to do what those around you expect. May you gladly keep pace with God’s Spirit as He leads you into His best plans for you – in His way, in His time, in His strength, and for His glory.