Finding Assurance In Uncertainties

Man dreads uncertainty because he has no control over it.

<Ecc 9> 11 I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
    or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
    or wealth to the brilliant
    or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

12 Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:

As fish are caught in a cruel net,
    or birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times
    that fall unexpectedly upon them.

• Man cannot control Time and Chance <v11>.
• God doesn’t give man full control  Man won’t be proud and self-reliant.
• God wants to give us something better than Control  God Himself!
• Uncertainty both a challenge and an opportunity.

Counter uncertainty with FAITH!

• (NIV, 1984 version) Heb 11:1: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
• Have greatest faith when there is least certainty/clarity.
• [Standalone] Mother Teresa: “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”
• “Clarity” can become an idol that supplants our faith in God.
• Do we prefer faith or clarity (certainty)?
• Bible asks us to both trust and obey God.
• Faith, not certainty, is what pleases God <Heb 11:6>.

What can we do by faith during uncertainties?

1）Find peace from God’s unchanging character and sure truth.

• <Heb 13:8> Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
• Often, our uncertainty is only a “felt” insecurity; God is still secure.
• Build our peace not on the foundation of “known outcomes”, but on God.

2) Find out how God wants to change me through the uncertainties.

• God is more interested in how I am transformed than how my situation changes.
• Wrestle till can say, “Lord, not my will, but Yours be done.”

3) Focus on today, instead of worrying about tomorrow. 

• <Mt 6:34> “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
• Counting blessings today will give assurance for tomorrow.
• “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength” – Corrie Ten Boom.
• Worry means we care about something more than God.
• Anxiety stops when we let God be the King in our concerns.
• Bring specific worries to God in prayer.
• Restore ‘assurance in the greater (God)’ to ease our ‘anxiety in the lesser’.

4) Make God’s kingdom our priority.