I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression over the past few months. I’ve been so afraid of the future and the path I will take over the next months after school. The stress of trying to finish well but not have a clear direction after this season scares me, it makes me feel like I am failing at my purpose. All I desire is to write words that will inspire others and serve the next generation in ministry, but the path is so unclear and that’s what makes it so difficult. That’s the reason I need Christ more than ever. It’s the reason we all need Christ more than ever. This past week I was worshiping with my brothers and sisters and received prayer of encouragement for this struggle I’ve been facing. After this I prayed with Matt the artist. I call him this because he truly thinks in abstract ways like an artist, and we prayed together in an abstract way. We prayed to look for the moment of origin for anxiety, and when I found it, he asked me to now put God in that situation. Everything changed. You see, Matt the artist helped me understand that I can’t go about things on my own, my foundation needs to be focused on my savior. Our focus needs to be on the foundation of our life.

My home church of Daystar in Greensboro, North Carolina, has recently purchased a new building and began remodeling it. That church was a place that met me when I needed an authentic picture of faith, and it taught me how to run after Christ with a burning passion. A little over a week ago, the foundation was poured in the new sanctuary. A place where people will never be the same, where worship will take place, and where chains will forever be broken. We, as the church and body of volunteers, were able to enter into the sanctuary and cover it in prayer and names. Pastor Allen said that this foundation would be built on prayer and expectancy of what God will do. The same is true in all of our lives, we need to make our foundation on Christ and he will give us all we need. Pastor Jonathan Stutts, my campus pastor, spoke at our high school ministry where I small group lead last night and spoke on this same topic. Definitely a sign God was revealing to me. He shared that our foundation sets up everything else in our lives, so we need to build it on a firm and trustworthy source. We need to be foundation focused.

Delight in the Lord.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The word delight means a cause or source of great pleasure. To me that is building a foundation. Making Christ the source before all else and he will give the desires. So often we try to twist this and say, “Give me the desires and I might delight in you.” We try to make a deal with God, saying that if he does what we want, then we will pursue him. The truth is, God isn’t a gameshow, and he’s not a genie in a bottle that gives us our every wish. He is a an all-powerful creator that wants a relationship with you, so much so that he sent his son to die for you and bridge the gap to attain it. We need to build our foundation on delight in the Lord, because then he will reveal the path for you to take.

Growth in hardship.

This is a reminder for you as it is for me. As we begin to work on our foundation, the storms will come. The enemy will try his hardest to make you fall and go back to a place of comfort. Don’t be deceived. Don’t listen to the lies that the world may try to tell you. You are building your foundation on the God of all things, the God that already won the war we face. When we stand in victory, nothing can stop us. Sure the attacks will come and we may still face pressure, but we can have hope in times of darkness. In my anxiety, I am able to have hope and trust in my powerful creator, so even when I have these feelings of the pressure, I can rest in the fact that God is for me. In the moments where I feel like I have no purpose or direction, I can take a step back and realize that I need to refocus my foundation. In the times of hardship, we can experience growth because of our focused foundation.

My future is unknown to me, just as it is for most of us. I have been given the desire to pastor the next generation and write words to inspire for a reason, and just because there hasn’t been a blinking neon sign as to where I need to go, I know that God will open the doors of opportunity. I graduate in May and have a pretty simple job, but I am so blessed. I may struggle with anxiety and depression, but I am choosing to live in freedom of that. I choose to have God be the foundation in my life, so that when trial comes, I can weather the storm. I choose to build my foundation on prayer and the love that God expresses to me on a daily basis. I am not perfect, but my God is. So I choose to rest in his perfect love and grace for me.

Choose to build your foundation on the source of all life. Be foundation focused.

-Joshua Thomas