Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them;
for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
1 John 4:4

Anyone out there feeling kind of overwhelmed lately?
Just me? Cool.

Really though.
Things for a lot of people have been overwhelming lately.
This week, on top of all the bullhockey happening in our country,
I had the privilege to be with people going through some of the worst moments life has to offer:
someone whose marriage is struggling,
someone who just lost a loved one to cancer,
someone dealing with a difficult diagnosis,
someone contemplating suicide,
someone not sure how to process all the information coming at them daily,
someone feeling discouraged in their work…
Each one, in their own way, is completely overwhelming.
And it can be hard to know what to do.

When I’m overwhelmed,
when I’m feeling like I don’t know what to do or feel or be or anything,
That is when I most often am driven to the promises of God found in scripture.
Because words found elsewhere just don’t seem to do it.
And this text from first John happened to be in front of me right when I was feeling the most overwhelmed this week.

It’s just chock full of promises:
“Little children” is a reminder that we’re children of God. We’ve been given that name and it doesn’t go away.  So I could basically stop there and it would do the trick.
But it doesn’t stop there.
“Conquered them” sounds confusing until you go read this whole section in context (which I always recommend doing) and the “them” is evil, or bad stuff.  I looked up the Greek word for conquer, and one of the definitions said it’s a characteristic of Christians, who “hold fast to their faith, even until death, against the power of their foes and temptations and persecutions.”  
YEAH BABY.  That’s us! That’s what we do. Because we are children of God and that means we always win against the brokenness in the world that’s trying to take us down with it.

The promises continue with the “one who is in you” – which is a reminder that God is with us, always.
And then, the piece de resistance is one little word, “greater.”
God is greater than all the bad stuff.

Sheesh.
What. A. Verse.
This verse doesn’t say that bad stuff isn’t real.
Or that if you believe in God only good things happen to you.
No this verse acknowledges the crap in the world is real, and bad and overwhelming.
And then God calls us child, and then basically says “I’ve got this” and gets to work.
Nothing in our life that is bad is bigger than God.
Nothing.
Yeah, it feels bigger sometimes, but that’s when we need this promise.
God, the one in you, is greater than anything else.
I mean dang.
That’s good juice you guys.  

So if you’re at all feeling overwhelmed by life, by the world, by politics, by social media, by anything at all, know that you are a child of God, God is with you, and God’s got this.
God’s all in,
for you,
and God wins.

(boom. Mic drop)