Trust God in Your Anxieties
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In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us, “Do not worry about your life.” He tells us not to worry about what we will eat, drink, or clothe ourselves with. This is an easy enough passage for me to skip over because I don’t worry about these things anyway. I realize there are many people in our world for whom these are issues, but I cannot relate. I have abundance as do most of you who happen to be reading this.
The people Jesus addressed on the mountain that day dealt with the issues of food, drink, and clothing everyday. They worried about such things. If Jesus were giving this sermon to me today I believe he would have focused on different issues and used different analogies.
Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life, about how important you’ll be in the eyes of others or if others will view you as competent and caring. Don’t worry about the issues of your children and how they might turn out. Is not life more important that acclaim or being accepted? Isn’t God capable of watching over your children?
Each of us have those things we worry about. Perhaps your worries include the very basic things of food and shelter. I know people who think about this constantly because they are unemployed or have very little. Maybe your worry is with safety and you live with constant fear. I know of a young man right now that deals with that every day. Or perhaps your worries are more like mine. I worry about how I’m being perceived by other people. I worry about over committing myself. I worry about my children.
One of the ways we show people we love them is to trust them, believe in them. When we set aside our worries and trust in God to manage these things that are beyond our control for us, we demonstrate our love.
However, talking about trusting God with these things that fill our minds every day and actually doing that are two different things. The habit I try to practice is to talk to God whenever anxious thoughts enter my mind. It usually goes something like this:
God, I’m worrying again about . . . . I keep envisioning worst case scenarios and they are causing me to feel anxious and angry. I realize these things are beyond my control, so I want to leave these worries, these anxious thoughts, and these negative emotions at your feet. I trust you to care for them as you will, on my behalf.
Does it always work? Honestly, it does not always work immediately, but the longer I focus on God and God’s wonder, the more I understand my impotence in the face of the situation, then the quicker I am able to clear my mind of my worries and move forward into the day with hope, joy, peace.
Jesus concludes this section on worry in Matthew 6 with the words, “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” When I turn my attention to God and away from these earthly concerns two things happen. First, God is pleased with the love and trust I have demonstrated. Second, the needs of my life are met by the power of One greater than I.
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