“As for me, I call to God, and the LORD saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice” (Psalm 55:16-17).

I am writing this as I work from Starbucks. Many of you know that I work out of a Starbucks a couple of hours every day. It’s not just the coffee. It’s the smells, the sounds, the atmosphere. For whatever reason I get my best work done in a cafe setting.

My wife wonders how I can concentrate with all the commotion and noise at a typical cafe.

There are around 8,000,000,000 people on planet earth right now. At any moment, there has to be thousands, if not millions of people crying out and praying to God at the same time. How is it even possible that God can hear our individual prayers amidst the noise and the cachophony of sounds of the millions of prayers? How can God separate out each individual prayers?

I think I get how that works. Starbucks shows me that every time I work at one.

You see, there are multiple conversations going on around me. There is the noise of all the workers and their machines. There is the activity of people entering and going. Yet, I have no problem concentrating.

Do you know where I can’t do this? It’s at home. It’s the church office.

I normally have music in the background because I don’t work well in total silence either. It tends to put me to sleep. Even when I wear noise cancelling headphones with music in the background, when I am at home the voices and activity penetrate my concentration. It is impossible to not hear my wife or kids. Impossible.

But at Starbucks, I don’t know any of the voices. I don’t care for the voices at Starbucks the way I care for the voices at home or in the church office.

That’s why when a parent is at a play ground and they hear their particular child cry out out of the dozens of kids at play and screaming and laughing, not only can the parent pick out their child’s particular cry but they are able to know in an instant whether the cry is a hurt cry.

Why? Because the voice of their beloved penetrates.

That’s how it is with God. Even though there are millions of voices that are lifted up, every one of those voices penetrates. God cannot ignore them. God cannot block them out because they are the voices of his beloved. And when a hurt cry is lifted up? Oh, man. God responds.

Starbucks…that’s how I know God hears our prayers.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

I love this verse. I love this verse because there are times when my world is troubled. There are times when life hurts. There are times when life feels totally unfair.

I love this verse because of the context. Jesus did not promise peace to give his disciples the warm fuzzies. Look at the context. Jesus says in the verse before our verse, “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone” (v.32).

Jesus tells the disciples that things will get so bad that every one of them will desert their Master and Lord. Life is going to get hard.

There are difficult times. That’s life. Loved ones get cancer. Loved ones die. We get into a car wreck. We lose our jobs. Countries go through recession. Countries go to war. People betray us. People quit on us. That’s life.

Thank God there is more to life than the difficult times. But, difficult times are a fact of life. And it is precisely for such times Jesus reminds us, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Look at where Jesus tells his disciples peace can be found.

Yup.

“In me you may have peace.”

Peace has a name. His name is Jesus. Do you know him?

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7).

What a fantastic promise! Success wherever you go! Yes. I want that. Don’t you?

How do we make this a reality in our lives? God tells us. “Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave to you. Do not turn to the left or to the right. Then, you will be successful wherever you go.”

The key is God’s word and obeying God’s word.

Here’s what happens when we stand in God’s word – We become strong and courageous no matter what life may throw our way.

Notice God did not tell Joshua to feel strong and courageous. God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. Feeling has to do with emotions. Being has to do with God’s truth and God’s reality.

The reason why so many Christians falter in their journey is because we have this backwards. We feel our way to the truth. That’s backwards. When we let our feelings lead the way we will be totally spineless. Feelings have no boundaries and no morals. I may have warm fuzzy feelings for my wife and children. And then, what the heck, I might have ill feelings for my wife and children. Feelings are terrible guides. Feelings are fickle. Feelings have no conviction, no morals, no boundaries.

Don’t let feelings talk you out of what God promises through his word.

That’s what it means to stand in God’s word. You don’t allow anything other than the promises of God to lead you…particularly your feelings.

Got it? Stand on God’s promises, not your feelings.