The burdens of people’s hearts are largely concealed from general view. Nevertheless they bulge from their souls like receipts from an overstuffed wallet. Much like receipts, credit cards, and punch-tickets, burdens are accumulated as we walk through the ordinary patterns of life. These are matters of personal, physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. Life hurts. This painful enduring mustn’t be minimized but instead optimized. There is a great Christian opportunity here.
The persistence and prevalence of such burdens and anxieties compels Christians to think strategically about how we might lovingly serve those who are afflicted. The Proverbs provide a proper framework for helping those who are freshly cut or scarred from the lacerations of this world.
Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. (Prov. 12.25)
My point here is that the “good word of good words” is the gospel. The gospel is the chief tonic to heal an anxious soul.
After all, the chief concerns of the soul revolve around: what we have done, what has happened to us, what will happen to us what will happen to others. We think about our relationships and the uncertainty of events. But all of our relationships and events fall under our relationship to our Creator. The fracture in this relationship brings separation which in turn brings the fracture in our earthly relationships. Further, it is the separation from God that hatches our anxieties about the future and our bitterness about the past.
How does the gospel answer this?
In the gospel we learn that God is for us in Christ Jesus. The root of all of our problems (our sin) has been fully dealt with in Jesus. By Jesus’ doing and dying for us our guilt, shame, separation, and penalty have been atoned for (1 Pet. 3.18). What’s more, our welcoming back to God, our approval before God and our final acceptance has been earned by Christ (Col. 1.21-22). It is this gospel work of Jesus that enables us to truly believe that all must truly work together for our good (Rom. 8.28). This does not mean that everything will be rosy for us but it does mean that everything will work of good for us. As Charles Spurgeon wrote:
Saints bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of apparent evils a real blessing shall ultimately spring—that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as he is pleased to keep them in it.
Presenting this reality of our relationship to God, a cleansed conscience, and a sure inheritance is indeed the best tonic for the anxious soul.
If you are talking to an unbeliever this could be the conversation that, like a gospel wrecking ball, breaks a hole into that dark dungeon of shame, guilt and hopelessness. Your words of grace might be that final blow that lets in that divine and supernatural light. So be intentional!
If you are talking with a fellow believer it is just as important to remind them of the gospel. So often in life we run into the choppy waters, get turned around and find ourselves stalling a bit. The faithful and intentional words of a friend serve to put a fresh gospel breeze into our sails! This speeds us away from the island of despondency to the shores of mercy. We are reminded that through Christ God is for us. Our faithful brothers and sisters come to speak truth to the weary soul. These are good words indeed!
Image via Shutterstock
