Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled

​I find myself in a weird disposition of late. Maybe you have felt that same way. Maybe you are like me wondering what is happening to the world. When I check out my news feed on my phone, there are always articles about something awful that happened in the past 12 hours. It seems like the world is on fire.

​The world seemed on fire when Billy Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” came out 34 years ago, right before the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union.  

Just like back then, it seems like the world today is being pulled apart. It seems like the world always feels like it is being pulled apart. But this time it feels different to me than those past events and times. It feels (at least to me) that there is a tug and pull in the world these days.  

It seems that in one sense, the world is trying to get back to what it once was and in another, it is trying to remake itself into something new.  

We are being tugged in one direction and pulled in another. And while we are being tugged at and pulled at, we can lose hope, we can become stressed out, we can become isolated, and we can wonder what else can the world throw at us.  

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” (John 14:1-14)  

I wonder how many times I’ve read and spoken those words. I’m sure you’ve read and heard them countless times. They are familiar and favorite words in difficult times. They’re the right words for times like today.  

As much as I like those words, I wish Jesus would’ve been a little more specific, but Jesus was never much for Q &A sessions.  

• What’s going to happen? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  
• How will we get through this? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  
• When will it be over? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  
• What will life, the world, the church be like? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  
• Is everything going to be ok? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  

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Jesus is telling us to not lose our center in the midst of what’s going on. That’s what happens when hearts are troubled and we don’t know the way. We lose our center and our lives can be defined by and focused on external things. Jesus is calling us back to our center, telling us to recenter and rebalance. He’s inviting us to live from the inside out, instead of from the outside in.  

If our heart is troubled, then it’s probably time to recenter. Recentering begins by looking within and seeing the ways in which we are living an eccentric life, a decentered life, a life on the periphery.  

Recentering won’t eliminate the troubles of this world and it won’t necessarily take away our worries or fix our problems, whatever they might be. Recentering gives us a place of stability on which to stand. It tethers our heart to faith, hope, and love.  

Recentering means loving our neighbor as ourselves; valuing the needs, hopes, and concerns of others as much as our own; being gentle with ourselves and others; forgiving not seven times but seventy times seven, whether it’s ourselves or another.  

Recentering helps know what to hold on to and what to let go of. Recentering connects us to the abundant life and to each other. Recentering opens our eyes, ears, and hearts to the way, the truth, and the life. It reminds us that we are not the center but that the center lies within each one of us.  

Hearts are troubled and the world seems to be spinning crazily and out of control, but there is a still point at the center – a still point that is not spinning crazily, a still point of peace, a still point of stability. “God,” writes Julian of Norwich, “is the still point at the center.” 

In Christ,  

Travis Segar 
Pastor for Care and Community