Most of what keeps you up hasn't happened yet.
It lives in next week. Next year. The result you haven't opened, the call you haven't returned, the headline you swiped away and then went back and read. And your mind does what minds do with a maybe: it runs every version at once, as if picturing the worst were the same as being ready for it.
It isn't. A team of researchers at University College London found something close to that in 2016. They had people play a game where a wrong guess could cost a small electric shock, and they kept changing the odds. The most stress didn't show up when the shock was certain, or when it was never coming. It showed up at fifty-fifty. One study, one lab, one small shock — I'm not building a doctrine on it. But it names something you already knew. A bad thing you can at least start to face. A maybe is harder.
I want to talk about what's under the maybe.
There's a night in John where the hardest maybes in the room get a straight answer. Is one of us the betrayer? He tells them. Is He leaving? He tells them. Will Peter hold? He tells him.
John 13:36
"Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards."
And two verses later, to the man who'd just sworn he'd die for Him:
John 13:38
"The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice."
Nothing there is softened. And the very next words out of Jesus' mouth — with no new scene, no change of room, no pause, because the chapter number in your Bible was added more than a thousand years later — are these:
John 14:1
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me."
Read the two together and you'll never hear 14:1 as a poster again.
Here's the part I couldn't get past this week.
Earlier in that same scene, He'd called them something. It's a word John's Gospel uses only here.
John 13:33
"Little children, yet a little while I am with you."
The Greek word is teknia — a family word, an affectionate one, the kind you'd use for someone you're about to leave in the house without you. And a few sentences after the promise, He says this:
John 14:18
"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."
In the margin of the original 1611 King James, that word comfortless is orphans — and it echoes the another Comforter He has just promised in John 14:16. Comfortless is the exact opposite of what He's saying He'll send. He called them little children. Then He said: I won't leave you orphans.
That's the older fear. Under the email and the news and the what-ifs there is almost always the same one, and those men had it at that table: that whatever comes, I'll face it by myself. "Whither I go, ye cannot come" (John 13:33). He is leaving. They know it. And Jesus doesn't answer by pretending He isn't. He answers by telling them where the leaving ends.
John 14:2-3
"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
A note for the nerds, because I promise it doesn't change the point.
If your Bible is the ESV, that line in the middle reads a little differently: "If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (The NIV takes it as a question too.) Scholars have argued over one small Greek word behind it for a long time. It doesn't matter here. In either reading, Jesus is staking His own word on the promise. And it holds for two reasons: He has just asked them to believe in Him beside God (John 14:1), and He hasn't talked one loss down all night. When that voice says I wouldn't say it if it weren't so, you don't have to wonder.
Think of the person in your life who told you the truth when it was bad. The doctor who never said "I'm sure it's nothing." The one who told you flat out it wasn't going to work. And the day that person finally looks at you and says, this one's going to be okay — you believe them. It's the only voice you do.
Also worth noticing: there's no date in that sentence. No sign to watch for. Nothing to decode. After the resurrection the disciples asked Him about the timing, and He said:
Acts 1:7
"It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
So the missing date isn't something we forgot to ask about. Jesus Himself says the times aren't ours to know (Acts 1:7). A date gives you something to count down to. A with gives you Someone to stay next to. The sentence doesn't end on an event. It ends on a place: wherever He is.
that where I am, there ye may be also.
And He didn't only say it. He asked for it. Later that same night, out loud, to His Father:
John 17:24
"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am."
That's what a forerunner does — Hebrews' word for Him, the One who goes in first so that you can follow (Hebrews 6:19-20). And notice how He said it: not from a safe distance. He said it that night. By morning He was on His way to a cross — Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). That's how the place gets prepared. You don't earn it by holding on tightly enough; it's given (Ephesians 2:8-9). Which is why what He asks for first isn't hold on. It's this: believe also in me.
So here's what I'd ask of you this week — and it's two small things, in this order.
First, for you. When it's your email, your call, you don't have to be brave first. Say it to Him the way it is: I don't know what's coming. You said You wouldn't leave me alone. Stay with me while I don't know. That's the whole prayer.
Then hand that shape to somebody. There's someone in your life sitting with their own unopened maybe right now. You know who. If they'd want it, send the text: Whatever it says, I'm coming with you. Notice what that text doesn't say. It doesn't say it'll be fine. You don't know that. Say what you can actually promise, and then go — the waiting room, the phone call, the seat next to them. What steadies a frightened person isn't a forecast. It's somebody who stays.
You're not doing that to earn anything. That same night He said, "as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). It's His love, passed along.
🎧 Listen: The Promise Underneath the Panic
🎧 Season 2 · The Hope That Endures — the full season in order: → https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaOMRPy55y5E
💛 And one plain word before you go. Everybody worries. But if it's more than the evenings — if you haven't slept properly in weeks, if your body is caught in it, or the waves feel like panic, or you can't get the loop to stop even at work — that might be an anxiety disorder. It's common, and it can be treated. Please talk to a doctor or a counselor. That's part of how God takes care of you, not a step away from Him. And if you ever have chest pain or trouble breathing, get medical help; don't assume it's anxiety. If it's gone darker than that, please reach out now, not later. In the U.S. and Canada, call or text 988, any time. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans is free on 116 123. Anywhere else, findahelpline.com will find a free, confidential line near you. If you're in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. People do come through this. Help works.
Faith isn't fragile. It's forged in fire — and He's in it with you.
Stay in the fire.
Norman
Faith Is Fire