Sometimes “the other side” looks so far away, so intimidating, so difficult to cross what lies in your path!

This image of a cow elk and calf looking so intently across the river brought this thought to me. I’m guessing we all identify with those places where “the other side” only produced anxiety and even fear.

Several friends are crossing that river of chemotherapy! It’s daunting for sure! My wife is crossing the “many examinations” to find out why a persistent pain holds on! And example after example are part of our lives.

I find much in the Word of God for such places in life where “the other side” seems overwhelming, where more than once we’ve thought about turning back, or denying what’s ahead, or even running away. Let me point you to some of God’s Word which has lessened the anxiety and set a perspective toward “the other side.”

To start with, these words in Philippians 4.6-7 are strength beyond measure facing what is intimidating.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in the Messiah Jesus.”

Knowing that somewhere in this “crossing” we’re going to be standing in the midst of this river, the truth of these words in 1 Corinthians 10.13 certainly guard our crossing!

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

Sometimes we’re tempted to deny, ignore, or even turn back in fear rather than press on to “the other side.” When the Apostle Paul looked back at what was behind him, things he could have turned to as strengths, he wrote this . . . Philippians 3.8-14,

“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing the Messiah Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain the Messiah, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from Law, but that which is through faith in the Messiah, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by the Messiah Jesus.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in the Messiah Jesus.”

What joy is ours knowing our Lord has more for us than we’ve ever imagined as we walk with him, even when it’s intimidating as we look to “the other side.”