Overwhelmed: God’s Way

Have you ever been overwhelmed? I mean really overwhelmed, where there is so much coming at you that you do not even know which thing to deal with first. One problem is enough to keep you busy, but then another one shows up, and before you have had time to get your head around that one, something else happens. Add family concerns, responsibilities, financial worries, things happening in the world, people who are difficult, things you cannot change, and things you cannot even understand, and suddenly your mind feels like somebody dumped the contents of a junk drawer onto the kitchen table and told you to sort it all out before supper. Sometimes it is not even one particular thing that overwhelms us. It is the accumulation of everything.

Then there is the world. Oi Vey! Sometimes you can turn on the news for less than five minutes and feel as though you have just been handed a hundred more things to worry about. Crime, violence, corruption, hatred, suffering, political foolishness, people hurting people, people lying to people, and people apparently having forgotten how to behave like human beings in the first place. We see things that make us angry, things that try to make us afraid, and things that break our hearts. After enough of that, it is very easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of wrong we see around us.

But we need to stop right there, because there is something very important we can forget when we become overwhelmed. We can become so occupied with everything that is happening around us that we forget who is still sitting upon the throne. God has not become overwhelmed. We are overwhelmed because our understanding is limited. We can see only so much. We know only so much. We can deal with only so much at one time. God has no such limitation. Nothing happening on this earth has caught Him by surprise. Nothing is outside His knowledge. Nothing is too complicated for Him to understand, and nothing is too large for Him to handle.

Contrary to what we were taught in church, the Bible never tells us that God's people will live lives without trouble. In fact, Scripture tells us quite the opposite. There will be sorrow. There will be difficulty. There will be times when we do not understand what is happening, and times when we wonder how we are going to get through what is in front of us. David knew what that felt like. He wrote, “The cords of death entangled me; the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow” (Psalm 116:3). Notice that David did not pretend he was not distressed. He did not try to dress up his feelings in religious language and pretend everything was wonderful. He said he was overcome by distress and sorrow. But look at what he did next. “Then I called on the name of the LORD: ‘LORD, save me!’” (Psalm 116:4). David's distress did not cause him to turn away from God. It caused him to call upon God.

There is a lesson in that for us. Feeling overwhelmed is not the same thing as being defeated. Being frightened is not the same thing as having no faith. Becoming weary does not mean that God has abandoned us. We are human beings, and there are circumstances in this life that can become very heavy. The question is not whether we will ever feel the weight of those circumstances. The question is what we will do when we feel it.

Peter gave us a beautiful answer. He wrote, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). I love that he did not say, “Carry your anxiety and try to become better at carrying it.” He said, “Cast” it. Put it somewhere else. Give it to God. The reason we can do that is not because our problems are unimportant. It is because God cares for us.

And here is where I think we have been taught something that needs to be corrected. We were taught to carry our burdens proudly for the Lord. We were taught that somehow carrying everything, enduring everything, and holding everything together was a sign of strength and faithfulness. But God Himself tells us to cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. God did not tell us to carry what He told us to give Him.

Now, I have to admit that this is one of those things that sounds much easier than it sometimes is. We give something to God, and then we pick it right back up again. We pray about something and say, “Father, I give this to You,” and then before the prayer is even over in our minds, we are thinking about it again. We go over the possibilities. We imagine what could happen. We think about what somebody might say or do. We consider every possible outcome, including some that have not happened, may never happen, and probably never will happen. We can worry ourselves half to death over a tomorrow that has not even arrived.

Jesus knew that about us. He said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). That does not mean tomorrow will be trouble-free. Jesus plainly said that each day has trouble. What He told us was not to drag tomorrow into today.

There is something very freeing about understanding that. Yesterday is finished. Tomorrow has not arrived. We have today. The Present... HIS GIFT TO US. Whatever God has given us to deal with today is what we deal with today. If tomorrow brings something that requires our attention, God will give us tomorrow's grace when tomorrow gets here. We do not have to manufacture tomorrow's strength today.

Paul gave us another piece of instruction that is especially important when our minds are crowded with concerns. He wrote, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). That is God's way of dealing with anxiety. We pray. We ask. We bring the matter before Him. We give thanks. We do not have to pretend that something does not bother us before we are allowed to bring it to God. If it bothers us, bring it to Him. If it frightens us, bring it to Him. If it angers us, bring it to Him. If it confuses us, bring it to Him. If we have no idea what to do next, bring that to Him too.

Then Paul tells us what follows: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). That is an interesting way to describe peace. He says it will guard us. A guard stands watch. A guard keeps watch over something valuable. Our hearts and our minds are valuable, and when we give our concerns to God, His peace can stand guard over them.

That does not necessarily mean the circumstance changes immediately. Sometimes it does. Sometimes God opens a door, removes an obstacle, changes a situation, or gives us the answer we have been praying for. But sometimes the circumstance remains while God gives us the strength to stand in the middle of it. There is a kind of peace that does not make sense if you are looking only at the circumstances. That is why Paul says it surpasses understanding. We may not be able to explain why we have peace, but we know where it came from.

The disciples had to learn this lesson in a boat one night. A violent storm came upon them while they were crossing the lake, and the waves swept over the boat. Jesus was asleep. The disciples woke Him and said, “Lord, save us! We're going to drown!” (Matthew 8:25). Their fear was not imaginary. The storm was real. The danger was real. But so was the presence of Jesus. Jesus got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and there was a great calm (Matthew 8:26).

What strikes me about that story is that the disciples looked at the storm and forgot who was in the boat. We do the same thing. We look at the circumstances until the circumstances are all we can see. We look at the problems until the problems become larger in our minds than the God who is with us.

The storm does not mean Jesus has left the boat.

Isaiah tells us, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:28). He does not grow tired or weary, and His understanding cannot be measured. That is a wonderful thing to remember when we are exhausted from trying to understand everything ourselves. We do not have to know everything because God does. We do not have to see everything because God does. We do not have to understand how every piece of the puzzle fits together because God sees the whole picture.

Isaiah continues, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:29). Notice that God gives strength to the weary. He does not tell the weary person to be ashamed because they are weary. He gives strength. He knows we have limits. He made us. He knows exactly how weak we are, and He does not turn away from us because of it.

Paul learned this when the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Our weakness does not frighten God. Our limitations do not limit Him. We do not have to become strong enough to deserve His help. We come to Him because we need His help.

There is a difference between a burden and a responsibility. We have responsibilities that belong to us. We are supposed to obey God. We are supposed to love others. We are supposed to speak truth. We are supposed to forgive. We are supposed to work, help, serve, pray, and do what is right. Scripture does not teach us to sit around doing nothing while saying, “God will handle everything.” Faith is not laziness.

But responsibility is not the same thing as control. I am responsible for my choices, but I cannot control somebody else's choices. I can pray for someone, but I cannot make that person change. I can do what is right, but I cannot force everybody else to do what is right. I can prepare for something, but I cannot control every possible outcome. I can pray about what is happening in the world, but I cannot carry the world on my shoulders.

And frankly, God never asked me to.

Sometimes we become overwhelmed because we have taken responsibility for things that belong to God. We think it is our job to make everything come out right. We think it is our job to keep everyone happy. We think it is our job to solve every problem. We think if we worry about something long enough, we will somehow discover the answer. Worry does not give us control. It only gives us exhaustion.

Jesus said, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27). The answer is obvious. Worry does not give us more control over life. It takes away the peace we could have had while we were living it.

This does not mean that we should stop caring. There is a difference between caring and worrying. Caring can move us to pray, act, help, speak, prepare, and obey. Worry can keep us circling the same problem until we are too exhausted to do anything useful about it. Caring can have purpose. Worry has no destination. Someone told me many years ago, “If you can't do anything about it, then what's the sense of worrying? And if you can do something about it, then there's no sense in worrying!” There is a lot of truth in that. Actually, there is the absolute truth in that.

We also need to be careful about what we allow into our minds. We live in a world where information is available every second of every day. There is always another headline, another crisis, another argument, another terrible thing to read. We can fill our minds from morning until night with things that disturb our peace and then wonder why we cannot sleep.

We should care about what happens in this world. We should pray for people who are suffering. We should recognize evil for what it is. We should not become so numb that nothing bothers us anymore. But there is a difference between being informed and being consumed. We are not required to carry every tragedy we hear about. We are not required to personally solve every injustice we see. We can bring these things before God and ask Him what He would have us do.

Paul said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). That is especially important when the world around us becomes ugly. We cannot become ugly with it. If other people are hateful, we cannot become hateful. If other people lie, we cannot lie. If other people are cruel, we cannot become cruel. Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). That is not always easy, but it keeps the darkness outside from becoming darkness inside.

Jesus also gave us the perspective we need when He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). I appreciate that Jesus did not give His disciples a false promise. He did not say, “Follow Me and nothing difficult will ever happen to you.” He said there would be trouble. Then He gave them something much greater than a promise of an easy life. He told them that He had overcome the world.

That means our hope does not depend upon the world becoming less troubling. Our hope depends upon Christ.

And that brings us to where I want my attention to be whenever I feel overwhelmed. We are waiting for the Bridegroom.

Jesus told the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. Five were wise and prepared their lamps with oil. Five were foolish and were not prepared. When the bridegroom arrived, the wise were ready to go in with him, but the foolish were not. Jesus ended the parable by saying, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:13).

That is where I want my attention to be. I do not want to become so overwhelmed by what is happening in this world that I forget what and Who is coming. I do not want to spend so much time watching the darkness that I forget to watch for the Bridegroom. I do not want to become so consumed with what people are doing that I forget what Jesus told me to do. I want my lamp burning. I want oil in it. I want to be ready.

There will always be another headline. There will always be another argument. There will always be another crisis. We cannot live our lives waiting for the world to become calm enough for us to have peace. If we do that, we may never have peace at all.

Our peace has to come from somewhere else. It comes from knowing that God is still God.

So when you find yourself overwhelmed, stop for a moment. Take a breath. Get away from the noise if you have to. Turn off the television. Put down the phone. Open the Word of God. Pray. Tell the Father exactly what is troubling you. You do not have to use fancy words. He already knows what is in your heart. Give Him the thing you have been carrying, and then don't try to take it back.

Remember what He has already brought you through. Remember the prayers He has answered. Remember the times you thought you could not make it and somehow God brought you through. Remember that the same God who was faithful then is faithful now. Your circumstances may have changed, but He has not.

And if all you can manage today is the next step, then take the next step. You do not have to see the whole road. God already does.

We may become overwhelmed, but we do not have to be overcome. There is a difference. We may bend under a burden. We may cry beneath it. We may need to stop and ask God for strength. But we do not have to let the burden convince us that there is no hope.

Jesus has overcome the world.

The world may be confused, but God is not. People may fail, but God remains faithful. We may not understand what is happening, but God does. Our strength may run out, but His does not. We were taught to carry our burdens proudly for the Lord, but Scripture tells us to cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. That is the absolute truth.

I do not need to carry what God told me to give Him. I do not need to control what belongs to Him. I do not need to borrow tomorrow's trouble today. I need to be faithful with what He has placed in my hands, trust Him with what I cannot control, and keep my eyes upon Jesus.

So keep your lamp burning. Keep your heart watchful. Keep praying. Keep trusting. And above all, keep your eyes upon Jesus.

King Jesus is coming. I want us to be ready for Him, and I want us to learn to leave the burdens He told us to give Him, in His hands.

Trust God.

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Prayer:

Holy Father, You are Almighty God, faithful, wise, righteous, merciful, and good. You are never overwhelmed, never weary, and nothing is too great for You. I praise You because You are God, and You are still upon Your throne.

Father God, I give You the burdens I have been trying to carry myself. Forgive me for picking up what You told me to cast upon You. Teach me to trust You with what I cannot control and faithfully do what You have placed in my hands.

When I become overwhelmed, turn my heart back to You. Give me Your peace, Your wisdom, and Your strength. Keep me from being overcome by the darkness around me, and keep my eyes upon Jesus.

Keep my lamp burning and my heart ready for the Bridegroom. I trust You with today, tomorrow, and everything I cannot see.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

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Don't take my word for it. Like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. Open your Bible, study God's Word for yourself, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth. Don't simply accept my conclusions. If what I've written agrees with Scripture, hold fast to it. If it doesn't, let God's Word be your final authority.

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© AMKCH 2026

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If any of these people looks like you or someone you know, that is purely coincidental. They are not.

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