“I’m not mad at YOU!” I shouted aimlessly at him.  “Then why are you YELLING at me?” he shouted back.  “I DON’T KNOW!  I just need to …. I’m just…  FRUSTRATED!”

Guys, if your car starts making terrible sounds and you can feel a shaking in the steering wheel, you know something is wrong.   Your next move is to probably take it through the car wash and see if that takes care of it.

Or not.  NO!  Nobody in their right mind would think that getting it washed on the outside will fix what’s going on under the hood.

Guys, if your wife comes in the room making terrible sounds and you can feel a shaking in the air and in the ground under your feet and you can see that SHE is shaking all over, including maybe her fists;  something is definitely wrong!  But guys, you can’t take your wife through the exterior wash of words like, “Calm down.   It will be fine.  Get a grip.  You’re over-reacting….” and expect it to wash over her and fix the issue.

No, this one can’t be fixed with the washing of rational words;  there’s something wrong under the hood.

This one is needs an inside job.

Girls, this goes both ways.  If your husband starts making terrible sounds at unexpected moments, then possibly makes no sounds at all when he’s supposed to be ‘running smoothly,’  something is up.  You could try to remind him what you both heard in the sermon on Sunday, but your words  may not be getting in to where the problem is.  Berating him with questions like, “What’s wrong?  Are you upset?  You’re mad at me, aren’t you?  What did I do this time?”  is a bit like taking your car through the car wash and expecting it to fix your engine.

Something is wrong under the hood.  This one may require an inside job.

Your heart is the engine of your life.  “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”  Proverbs 4:23  NIV.   If there’s trouble in your heart, it will affect everything else in your life.

“So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are.  Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.”  says the same verse in the Passion Translation.

Guys, can you tell something is wrong with your girl?  Has she just snapped at you again for really no good reason?  Is she ranting on and on about how hard this is, how bad the kids behaved, how unfair life is….  It could be those are just her symptoms.  You need to check under the hood:  what’s going on in her heart?  What’s at the root of all this noise and shaking?  And girls, we need to help them with this.  We can’t keep driving and just ignore the problem.   We gotta pull over and look deeper.  What’s going on under the hood?

Or maybe the question might be, “What is troubling your heart?  What has caused you to be afraid?”  For me, fear is most often the root.   So looking deeper to see what I’m really afraid of is a good way to start: what’s REALLY wrong with the engine?   It’s usually not something I can fix on my own.  And neither can you.

We’re going to need a Master Mechanic.

At the time of their worst nightmare, when His disciples had just been told the news they feared the most – that He was leaving, and would be given over to be crucified and die – Jesus told them this, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, and trust also in me.”  John 14:1  NIV   

Girls, what is happening in your life that is causing your heart to be troubled?  What just happened before that outburst?  What are you thinking about and mulling over and trying to figure out?  What is keeping you awake at night because you can’t stop thinking about it, and worrying, and fearing…..

And guys, anxiety is no respecter of persons or gender:  What’s happening at work right now that has your stomach in knots.  What’s going on with the finances that feels like it’s overwhelming with no solution in sight…..

Jesus is encouraging you and your spouse and all of us:  “Don’t worry or surrender to your fear.  For you’ve believed in God, now trust and believe in me also.”  vs.1 TPT

This made no rational sense to His disciples, and sometimes makes no sense to us!  How can I not be afraid when it looks like…. How can I NOT be troubled when this is happening?   And Jesus knows.  And he says to us what he said to them:  “Do not let…”

Notice we have a choice.   We get to decide.  We are not powerless.  “Don’t LET your heart be troubled….  Don’t LET IT….”    We get to decide what our hearts be-come.  And we usually become what we behold:  What are we focused on?

“Don’t worry or surrender to your fear…”  Meaning, we must have the ability to NOT surrender, to remain free from fear, or He would not ask it of us!

But HOW?  How do we keep our hearts from fear?  How do we guard them above all else?  You can’t just STOP feeling fearful…  we need to START feeling something else, something even more powerful than fear: “You’ve believed in God, now trust and believe in me also.”

We need to choose something in PLACE of,  INSTEAD of fear:   We are to TRUST.

Trust is more powerful than fear.  But trust is not something you muster up;  trust is the result of something… trust happens when…    Well, Wm. Paul Young says it best for me:

“Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know that you are loved.”  (The Shack, pg.100)

Jesus is asking us to trust Him because He loves us more than we can know.  He is asking us to BELIEVE Him and His great love for us, not only because he TOLD us, but because He proved it with His very life….

He told his disciples, “I’m going to prepare a place for you!  … so you can be where I am!…  I promise that I will never leave you helpless or abandon you as orphans – I will come back to you!  … And I will passionately love you in return and will manifest my life within you!”  John 14: 2, 18-21

Husbands and wives,  Jesus loves us and wants us to BELIEVE and TRUST his love!  He died and rose again to defeat death and fear and any evil that causes us to fear.  He has promised us that whatever we are facing, He is greater, and we can trust Him with our very lives and every detail of them.  His love is so great that even when very real troubles come, we can know that He has overcome them and will redeem (buy back for us) anything those troubles may steal from us.  He will never leave us and has ultimately made sure we will be with Him forever: safe in Him.

Our fears reveal what we believe = what we are trusting in.  Most things that we fear never even come to pass  (Fear is a Liar).  Yet we seem to ‘believe’ in those ‘possibilities’ sometimes more than we believe in the unshakeable, never-changing, faithful Love that is more real than anything.  Jesus is the Truth that we can trust, the Love that will never fail us.

We bless you today to pay attention to your hearts.  What is going on under the hood of your lives?  As husbands and wives, be looking deeper so you can pray more and fix less and let compassion help you ask the right questions.

Ask your spouse today, “How can I be praying for you today?   Are there any concerns that are weighing on you?   Will you let me know when something happens that causes you to be anxious or fearful?”   And we girls might ask:  “When I seem to be having a ‘breakdown’, will you pray with me and remind me that Jesus love is greater, we can trust Him, and I don’t have to let my heart be troubled!”

And when we realize that some deeper issues and fears have caused us to shut down or take it out on our spouses, may we go and ask forgiveness and ask them to pray with us about what’s really going on inside our hearts.  When we do, Jesus does this:

“I leave the gift of peace with you – my peace.  Not the kind of fragile peace given by the world, but my perfect peace.  Don’t yield to fear or be troubled in your hearts – instead, be courageous!”  John 14: 27