The moon is round
“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” – Jonathan Edwards
The beauty of those words is that they are so simple yet so true. There is nothing at all, no word, no deed, no thought, that will ever save me. And I take comfort in this.
But for those of us with anxiety (myself included), we often to fail to acknowledge our need for dependence on the everlasting God. So often I fail to depend on God that I try and push myself to do things that I cannot possibly achieve.
But I know that I can still take comfort in God for two reasons:
1) He is Love.
In 1 John 4:7-12 it is written:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
Not only is our God the definition of love, He made it manifest for us in through Christ! How magnificent and mind blowing is that?!
I can do nothing but cry out that He is my Lord and God!
Many years ago, a pastor whose name escapes me told this story:
“One day, I was visiting one of my parishioners and noticed a large flat stone on the floor engraved with the words "the moon is round”, so I asked the woman for an explanation. She informed me that a young friend of hers had died of cancer at the age of fourteen years. During the two years of the young girl’s struggle, she kept a notebook of Bible verses that had comforted her in her suffering. After the girl died, her friends and family began to read her journal. In the middle of the book was an index card with no verse written on it, just the statement “the moon is round.” Of course they did not understand the cryptic message at first, but eventually the meaning became clear: When it is dark and only a sliver of the moon is showing, what do you know? You know that the moon is round. That teenaged saint believed that though she could not see enough into God’s providence to understand everything that was happening to her, she still knew that God is gracious and all together sovereign.“
Remember that in all things that the moon is round. When the panic attacks come, when the crippling fear consumes you, know that the moon is round!
2) There have been others before us who have felt the same.
Take a moment to read Psalm 88 (out loud if you can). Do it cos you’ll need to for this next section.
Done? Good.
There is a reason why that is my favourite psalm. Despite all the things that the psalmist is going through and feeling, God is still the God of his salvation. And because of this, he is constant in prayer to Him.
How I wish that that was my cry day and night. Even when the darkness is all encompassing, I want to be able to pray to the God of my salvation.
So even though I may contribute nothing to my salvation but the sin that made it necessary, I do not need to worry because Christ died and rose that I may be free. I may not be from my anxiety in the here and now but I do not need to worry about my future because I know that God is love.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
– Revelation 4:11
Amen.