Rocks Into Rivers

An abridged version of this post can be read here :-)

A tale is told of this emperor who one evening, while sitting on the balcony of his majestic palace, got word of a huge army marching towards his realm. Detail on the attackers was hazy, but the word on the street was that the approaching soldiers had a flaming dragon’s emblem braided on the huge banners they wielded. Emperor Jehu the Brave, continuously grew certain that he had seen the insignia before. He had fought out countless battles, but his now contorted face plainly portrayed the terror that had suddenly sopped his soul.

Twelve years earlier, Jehu had visited the far away kingdom of Highbury to try and get his son a wife amongst one of its king’s twenty-two daughters. The daughters’ beauty had been spoken of far and wide, but their father was also known to be rather sly, always swindling impending suitors out of their gold and guns. Jehu’s gallantry had similarly spread far, as he commanded great reverence wherever he went. He was a loaded man too, having innumerable servants and guards at his beck. Jehu’s reign as emperor had seen his realm, Lumkandand, prosper greatly. Riches abound and the precise number of troops under his command was allegedly a mystery even to himself. Therefore, when the sneaky king was made aware of Jehu’s interests, he hastily obliged, but only if Jehu would accept to merge the two kingdoms troops and help the crafty king invade a neighboring kingdom.

Jehu was initially hesitant, as he relied heavily on his Grande Vizier giving him counsel before marching to his battles. But fatefully, Dayron had before the expedition caught a bug, and amidst great refutation agreed to stay back in Lumkandand. The king in his trickery managed to sway Jehu into uniting their forces despite Jehu’s trusted squire warning against it. So Jehu and King Knuckle-head (let’s call him King Knuckle-head), so they march on to war. Knuckle-head even somehow convinced Jehu to stick to his snazzy jacket while he draped himself in an iron man suit with three bulletproof vests on top of it just in case.

So the guys are in the battlefield. It’s on a vast plain somewhere in Kitui. Nothing can be spotted for days! Suddenly, an F-16 swoops over the troops and drops a gigantic bag of candy… No! Wait! A huge bomb! I meant the F-16 dropped a massive T-12 Cloud Maker. All hell breaks loose! A minute later, Jehu, in his exquisite suit, has an entire platoon of enemy troops chasing after his horse drawn carriage. Yeeees, Knuckle-head had even convinced Jehu to go to war in a horse-drawn carriage. Like seriously. So there’s gunfire all around and Jehu crouched in the carriage is screaming like crazy. The soldier on the horse drawing the carriage suddenly gets shot and falls off. Jehu has to think fast! He jumps off the carriage and, after a somersault or two, quickly tries to get on the horse. Then he hears one of the soldiers among those chasing after him shout some ‘Oscar Mickey Jethro’ Navy SEAL thing before they all of a sudden turn back and crawl away towards the thick of the action. Oh! Also, the squire had told King Knuckle-head that he would be killed if he chose to march on to battle, so Knuckle-head (with his knuckle headedness) had had him thrown into a dungeon, ordering the guards to feed him on grasshoppers and beeswax until he returned from war.

Meanwhile, Knuckle-head feels hot in the iron suit, plus the bulletproof vests have become rather heavy. He decides to loosen the suits head so he can catch some air. A sniper on his first tour with the enemy forces lurks silently behind a bush a hundred yards away. He yawns and thinks about his mother’s chicken soup. A wasp from God knows where suddenly lands squarely on his nose, making him scream remarkably. His finger is still stuck on the trigger of his M21 sniper rifle, so when he decides to stand up so as to continue with his screaming, he accidentally pulls the trigger. A hundred yards away, Knuckle-head feels a cool wetness on the right side of his neck. He slaps it thinking it's sweat. Sadly, it isn’t. The sniper’s haphazard shot had ripped right through Knuckle-head’s neck! Knuckle-head on realizing he actually has been shot freaks out like crazy then falls down writhing and stuff. He dies. Just like that.

Fast forward to present day Lumkandand. Jehu is sat on his balcony. The troops from twelve years before had sworn to hunt down his neck for liaising with their enemy, and as it seemed, they were true to their word. Jehu just loses it and starts crying. The oncoming troops apparently had with them a new fleet of Russian T-40 tanks, and reportedly all wore Iron Man suits. Plus they ratioed Jehu’s troops five to one, and, as fate had it, Jehu’s top military commander was on holiday in Peru.

Have you ever been worried? I’m not talking about ‘it’s-seven-pm-and-my-hens-haven’t-come-back-home’ worried. I mean something like ‘graduation-is-in-two-days-and-I-haven’t-handed-in-my-CAT-for-grading’ worried. Anxiety is something we battle with relentlessly in our lives. Will I get a job after school? What if I die before I get to watch the new season of Hart of Dixie? Why has she not replied to my text yet? I texted her two minutes ago! Oh my! What have I done?  Maybe I wasn’t meant to ever get married! We are always troubled about something. Our worries at times even get the better of us, resulting in us being stuck in bouts of depression.

The coming of age of social media has enabled us to stay connected to friends and family in a somewhat painless way. Facebook for instance enables us to keep up with the on goings in the lives of our loved ones. A trend I've noticed lately, however, is how my feed is always full of happy people always doing great things or visiting these really cool places. The past year has seen a huge number of my high school mates getting done with college, so graduation pictures and messages of thanks pretty much riddled my feed. I honestly at first was all “Oh boy! This is so nice. Nick and Joel have just graduated!” Then “Look at this! Remember Janet, my desk mate in primary school? Yes her, she’s just graduated! How awesome is that!” But before long, all that started becoming depressing. I mean, everyone I knew seemed to have figured their lives out and there I was stuck with nothing exciting even looming in my horizon. This really had me worried. Despite the happy posts on our feeds, it’s surprising really how depressed the world is. 40%! That’s the figure the World Health Organization is throwing about. 40% of the earth’s populace is depressed, with anxiety being one of the key causes.

But can all this worry in our lives really do us any good? Does worrying about whether you’ll get a job, let alone graduate, help your cause in any way? Will crying yourself to sleep because of financial strain ease your strain? I’m afraid not. I’ve been believing God to help me overcome my anxieties, and over the past couple of months He’s been opening my eyes to a number of things in His word. God exclusively speaks to us concerning anxiety on plentiful occasions all through the bible.

***Jeremiah 29:11***

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

God has a plan etched out for each and every one of us. We at times may be pushed by our worries into sitting down and mulling over how miserable our futures seem, but God, ever faithful, assures us that He essentially has a blueprint of our lives and knows how it will all pan out for us. He even further tells us that the end actually is good. Jesus twice in the book of Matthew urges us not to fret about our daily lives or even about our futures.

***Matthew 10:29-31***

Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t worry! You are more valuable to Him than many sparrows.

God values you! Greatly! He won’t let you be weighed down by your suffering if only you have the faith that He has your back. Yes, faith! All God asks of us is to step into the water and see what our faith can bring forth. When King Ahaz in the book of Isaiah got news of an impending attack on Jerusalem by the Syrians, he became really bothered. However, God was quick to quell his worries. Ahaz just had to do one thing.

***Isaiah 7:9b***

If you want me to protect you, you must learn to believe what I say.

All God asks us is to have complete faith in His word. That’s it! Perhaps you’ve read all that I’ve written and snickered, as all I’ve done is address “those who really have no reason to worry,” and are thinking “Dude! I’ve trusted in God and all, but my rent is due in two weeks, and I’ve just been laid off” or “I’m about to get my first baby, and both my parents and the guy responsible have abandoned me. Oh! Also I don’t have a job…” Maybe you are there. Maybe it’s all too much. Do I think you have real reason to worry? Okay, yes. Yes I do! But does God think you should? Nope. This is what He says to those if us in the murk:

***Psalms 55:22***

Cast your burdens upon the Lord, and He shall sustain You. He will never permit the righteous to slip or fall.

This God is asking us to take those things that are threatening to keep us awake to our deaths and not place or lay gently on, but CAST them upon Him! Literally fling our worries on Him! God in exchange will give us His yoke and burden that He says are easy, light and soothing to our souls. When we took up this faith God immediately took over our lives. While we may at times see trouble brewing in the horizon like Emperor Jehu the Brave in the 20^th chapter of 2^nd Chronicles, or find ourselves in the thick of the gale like Job, we just need to hold on to God’s promises and have the faith that he will turn our rocks into rivers, like He did for Moses.  

“…well let me tell you what the good Lord say, He said don’t be anxious about your life. What you’re going to eat or what you’re going to drink or about you’re body. See, life is more than food, and the body is more than for clothing. Birds in the sky, they don’t sow, they don’t reap, but your heavenly Father feeds them. So, He says just seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. See, life ain’t for you to control, carry all the burdens. That’s why you give your life to Him. Hang on…”

                                    -Hang on, Lecrae.