Do you worry? Most of us do, and yet Jesus tells us very clearly we have nothing to worry about. In fact, He tells us it is counterproductive! We don’t need to worry because we know how our story will end. If our hope is assured (see Heb 11:1), we shouldn’t be concerned about the sorrows of today or tomorrow. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow,” said Corrie Ten Boom; “it empties today of its strength.”
How do we protect ourselves from worry? The answer is faith. When our hearts are fixed on God, we see life from an eternal viewpoint. We are able to put God’s goals first. The question we must keep asking is, “Where is my heart?” If my heart is fixed on worldly things, I will always worry because the world’s treasures are uncertain. If my heart is fixed on God, I will rest in His power and strength.
Great faith can cancel out worry.
The Answer to Anxiety Rejoices in God’s Plans
The Bible is clear that God’s people deal with anxiety. The Psalmist acknowledges that even when the Lord is your hope, the cares will still be many! All through Psalms and Proverbs there are acknowledgments that God’s people know what it is to have cares in our hearts.
It is humility that brings hope to the anxious heart, and this humility that brings relief from anxiety rests in God’s gracious and good plans.
Can you be confident that He will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you?
God is described by Peter as the God of all grace. I don’t deserve for the Lord to take care of me in such a way that, at all times, it is something good that is being worked out in the details of my life.
And yet that is what He does. Because He is gracious and good, I can have this confidence – whatever suffering I am going through is temporary. Even if it is for a lifetime, it is still a little while.
What awaits us is eternal glory in Christ – who will Himself restore us, confirm us, strengthen us and establish us.
The Old Testament book of Job tells us of a man who lost everything. We know that the Lord was using his faithfulness to demonstrate to Satan that Job’s reverence for the Lord wasn’t dependent on the things in his life that he had been given.
We read about this purpose of God’s in Job’s life, but Job lived it – he didn’t have the book of Job to tell him of the things that we know by reading in Scripture.
Amazingly, due to God’s work in his heart, he was able to say that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away” – but “blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job was able to say, “I trust Him.”
You humble yourself when you acknowledge God’s sovereignty and rejoice in it. You must be willing to admit that He has the power and the right to do what He will do. Whether this looks like giving or taking away in your life, you must be willing to say this to Him with a heart of praise.
This is not fatalism or resignation, but praise.
We have not humbled ourselves until God’s sovereignty is sweet to us.
Do you rejoice in the knowledge that you are not in control, but He is?
Will you humble yourself by taking all those things represented in the word anxieties, bag them up, and cast them onto Him, knowing that He cares for you?
If you would like to find out more about this topic, we invite you to listen to the episode of the Straight Truth Podcast called “Answering Anxiety” on YouTube https://youtu.be/gPgK0tbUesc or Vimeo https://vimeo.com/252726922 You can also purchase the book “Answering Anxiety” by Richard Caldwell
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