‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.’ Thus Martyn Lloyd-Jones quotes Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

That is where the Christian message is of such help to us. It does not change the circumstances, but what it does is to change us…

The glory of our message is that circumstances, surroundings and ‘the stars’ remain exactly as they are. We can, however, maintain our composure because our attitude is different. It is a change in us which enables us to view these things without – dare I say it? – having to go to consult a psychiatrist!…The glory of the Christian position is that it puts us right. ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…all things are become new (2 Cor. 5:17). Now, in what sense is this true? it is in the sense that he sees them differently. It is the secret of Christian life and of living.

Two men look out through the same bars:
One sees the mud, the one the stars (F. Langbridge)…

They are looking at the same things, but their reaction is entirely different. This is what the Christian faith should do for us – if we will only practice it.

(Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Healing and the Scriptures, pp. 101-102)

Lloyd-Jones’ quote deals with a Christian way of dealing with stress. Most jobs are stressful, but I turn to the job of a professional football coach to illustrate his point. As a football fan I was always impressed with the demeanor of former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. You could never tell the score of the game by looking at his body language or facial expressions. They could be up by 20 or down by 20 but he always stood like a rock on that sideline. After the Colts won the Super Bowl in 2006, Dungy published his memoir entitled Quiet Strength and revealed quite plainly that the reason for his solid demeanor was his solid faith in Jesus Christ.

That book influenced me. Having watched the Colts, as a fan, for many years, and having seen his unflappable posture, and having read his book and seen his reasons behind it, I made this a point of emphasis in my own life. I do not want to come across as a robot. I do not want to be without passion or emotion, not at all. But what I want is to be in the midst of a storm and find that faith in my Savior allows me to stand calm and firm.

A few years ago I stood, literally, in the midst of a tornado that ravaged by neighborhood. Later I stood and watched as my daughter broke her arm. Only shortly after that I watched as my wife had a miscarriage. And in the midst of all this I stood daily in a stressful workplace, and regularly at the bedsides of sick church members.

The question in all of those situations comes down to this: where is God in the midst of it? Where is Jesus in the midst of it? If he is there, then I can be there too, and be there with a quiet strength that is not my own. The situation must not determine our actions – it is our perspective that must determine them. The question, then, is What is your perspective? As my friend Timothy pointed out, it should be that of the Book of Revelation – that in the midst of the bowls of wrath, trumpets of judgment, and cries of woe, Jesus walks in the midst (Rev. 1:13), as he did with those Hebrew youths of old (Dan. 3:25).

All things become new, says MLJ, in the sense that we see them anew, we see them differently. A miscarriage with God is different from one without God. A tornado with God is different from a tornado without God. Strive to see things right, and thereby strive to be unflappable. And, I suppose, that means that this is not just a matter of demeanor. Rather it is a matter of the soul. It is possible, and my own demeanor attests to it, that you can look calm on the outside while inwardly you are quaking – like a duck, who looks still on the water, but underneath his feet are very busy. Instead we want to be in the position of the psalmist:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me (Ps. 131:1-2).