"Fear Not, I Am with Thee, Peace Be Still"

in all of life's ebb and flow

Photo by Nate Dumlao

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I was remembering a friend recently. One of those people who made an appearance in my life for a season, then disappeared.

We would meet for coffee and talk about everything, all the turmoil and drama we were going through in our lives. And when she left town, she left everything—including me—behind.

I wasn't surprised or hurt that she did this; I understood.

Last week I felt inspired to write a song about her. It was a dumb song and I more or less threw the whole thing out except for one line: I finally found Jesus; He's right where He's always been.

The more I thought about this line, the more I felt that my entire spiritual journey could be summed up in it. Through all the searching, struggling, striving, slipping, falling, and getting back up I've done in my life, Jesus was there.

He was in the scriptures, speaking to me, when I had ears to hear.

He was responsive to my prayers, though sometimes His response was a long silence.

When I look back, I see His faithful, guiding hand, His protection, His provision, His patient waiting when I went astray, His gentle (though painful) correction when I was finally willing to see my errors.

Why was I searching so hard, trying so hard, writing my sad Christian emo songs, trying to solve every problem in the world, when Jesus was right there the whole time, carrying the weight of my world (and all my sin) for me?

* * *

Last week I went to an Ash Wednesday service. We were packed into a tiny chapel, spilling out into the hallway, singing a cappella hymns, reflecting on our mortality and our sins.

When I went forward to receive ashes on my forehead, the minister said to me, “Repent and believe the Gospel.”

It struck me that this was a kind of fulfillment of the line I'd written in my (mostly discarded) song: This is how we find Jesus. This is where He's always been.

I've spent a lot of time repenting in the last several years.

But to repent is not enough; we must repent and believe. We must turn away from something and turn toward something.

We must turn away from our sins and toward the Gospel—the good news—that Jesus came to save us.

That our sins are taken away. That we can, with God's help, live differently.

That God's Word is true—and that His promises are for us--waiting to be believed and taken hold of.

We must believe it all—the parts we understand and the parts we don't—and embrace it all and let ourselves be changed by it.

* * *

There's within my heart a melody
Jesus whispers sweet and low:
Fear not, I am with thee, peace, be still,
in all of life's ebb and flow.

These lines of an old hymn caught my eye recently. It struck me that Jesus's “whisper” to the hymn writer is very much like His whisper to me, in the pages of scripture, in my prayers, and in the books I read:

Fear not, I am with thee, peace be still.

How do I take hold of that peace? I have to believe.

Believing is more than optimism, more than intellectual assent. It is a decision, made with the heart, mind, and will.

And then, with the body, we show that we believe by what we do.