Who controls tomorrow?

“Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ That’s what those people who don’t know God are always thinking about. Don’t worry, because your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will have its own worries. (Matthew 6:31-34)

I used to kid with mom by telling her she worried about not having anything to worry about! She was a fretter. Towards the end of her life, when she had little else to do but 'think', she'd come up with some scenario, then think on it until she had herself kind of worked up about it. We'd have to talk through things until she had peace again about the situation she had become worked up about, then all would be good in her world again until the next 'scenario' got painted across her mind. Are you a worrier? Do you make yourself ill with worries, some not even realistic, much less anything you could do something about? When we worry, we declare our lack of trust in someone or something. Tomorrow will have its own worries, so why do we 'forecast' the worries of tomorrow by making them part of today? Maybe it is because we haven't really accepted that God wants our focus entirely on him and not on the things we can do little to change around us!

What you should want most is God's kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. In other words, you should focus on his will for the day. How do you determine that? If we take time each day to ask him, listening for his plan even when we are reading through is Word, we might just tackle the day with a bit more confidence and a whole lot less worry. All the things we need are already at our disposal - even those things we don't see. We may not even realize what our true needs will be today, but he does, and he has prepared whatever it is we will need in ADVANCE of us needing it! If God has a plan, prepares for our needs in advance of us even needing it, then what good will any worry over our 'perceived needs' do for us? Not one thing! It will only serve to keep us from focusing on the things God actually wants us to pay attention to today!

Do we want God's best in our lives? Are we willing to relinquish control of those things that are really outside of our control in order to see God's best come to fruition in our lives? That is the real question. No one will likely say they don't want God's best, but more will admit they have a tough time really letting go of the reins and allowing God to take over. Trust is based on several things - the one we place our trust in, the reputation or past performance of that person, and how willing we are to 'let go' of the need to control the situation. If we have asked Jesus into our lives, we are trusting in the one who has proven to keep his word time and time again. His 'reputation' is based on 'performance' that never fails or falters. So, if we really want to get to the nitty-gritty of our worries, it is likely that we are not willing to let go. Just sayin!

Pushing back the darkness

Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. (Rabindranath Tagore)

I say this because all of God lives in Christ fully, even in his life on earth. And because you belong to Christ you are complete, having everything you need. Christ is ruler over every other power and authority. (Colossians 2:9-10)

If Christ lives in you, all of God lives in you - you are complete, lacking in nothing you ever need, full of power and might. Now, how many of us are actually living like we believe that? Most of us would cop to a plea of living somewhere below that mark, believing instead in the things that give us worry and stress as a bit more powerful right now. As Tagore said, 'faith is the bird that feels the light' even when the darkness around you hasn't been pushed away entirely by the light. We might just need to ask God to reveal himself in the darkness so it can be pushed back entirely!

If Christ rules over every power and authority that exists, why do we worry so much about things we don't seem to have control over? Perhaps it is because we think WE need to be the one to be in control, living with a courage that really isn't part of who we are in a natural sense. We are faced with bills we cannot pay right now, so we fret, lose sleep, and look for a second job. We extend ourselves beyond what God intended for us to be extended physically, impacting how we feel emotionally and then wonder why our spiritual life is not 'holding us up' any longer. Truth be told, we are neglecting that while trying to figure out how to be our own life's power and authority!

When we welcome Christ into our lives, he becomes the ultimate authority. Like it or not, we must relinquish our 'control' to his ultimate power and authority. We really weren't controlling life well anyway, so how hard should it be to give over control? It is hard for us to admit we are 'not dealing well' with life's challenges, but we hold on to the edges of our sinking ship like it will save us. That 'sinking ship' is really a bunch of 'plans' we made that didn't really 'pan out' all that well. To hold onto those plans is to trust our lives to an anchor, not a life raft!

We would do well to recognize that all power and authority comes to us in the person of Christ. The more we let go of our need to control things, the more we will recognize the futility of the anxiety of working our own plans. It won't be easy to let go, even though the ship is sinking. We might not see our deliverance immediately, but we can trust God's promises. His Son lives in us, therefore his power lives in us. The very thing we need to overcome the darkness that seeks to invade our souls is present within us. Maybe we just need to let his light push that darkness away until we see clearly what we need to do right now. Just sayin!

HIS peace stands guard

Don’t worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks for what you have. And because you belong to Christ Jesus, God’s peace will stand guard over all your thoughts and feelings. His peace can do this far better than our human minds. (Philippians 4:6-7)

If you struggle with what to say when you stop long enough to talk with God about things you are experiencing anxiety about, you are probably among a huge group of others who experience similar anxious thoughts. Anxiety has become one of the biggest issues today simply because of all the uncertainty in the world around us. Supply chain issues, rising interest rates, difficulty finding jobs that pay enough to make ends meet, unrest over one's beliefs, and the list goes on. For some, these things can become overwhelmingly difficult to deal with. The desire is to have God take it all away, but the reality is that God primarily helps us walk through those difficulties rather than removing them completely.

The most important part of this passage is something we all need to hear: "HIS peace can..." It stands guard over our thoughts. It keeps our emotions in check. In other words, HIS peace brings the checks and balances into our lives that keep us on an even keel. God's peace can do this BETTER than anything our human minds can accomplish with all that worrying and fretting. Some of us are habitual worriers - we aren't even sure what causes all the worrying, or that we are even engaging in worry, but those anxious thoughts just creep to the surface so easily. When there is so much worry, there is little room for peace. That's why God tells us to cast those cares upon him. Bring them to the surface, being direct in admitting they are there, even when we don't actually know the cause of those worries. Then he does the rest!

The thing we might miss in this passage - it is HIS peace that stands guard over our minds and our hearts. Both are affected so deeply by anxiety. Emotions ride high one day, low the next, all jumbled up at times that we cannot even explain what we are feeling or where those thoughts are coming from. Our minds ruminate on things that we should never have entertained in the first place. At other times, there is genuine concern for a situation, but we don't bring it to God, choosing to just rehearse it over and over again in our minds until our emotions are in a jumbled mess. The thing we need to ask God is to place a guard over our hearts and minds. When we are tempted to 'own the worry', we need to stop, remind ourselves that God has placed that guard there because he can bring peace far better than any human reasoning can ever provide. Just sayin!

Get today right, will you?

Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ That’s what those people who don’t know God are always thinking about. Don’t worry, because your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will have its own worries. (Matthew 6:32-34)

Stop for just a moment - get quiet and focus with me for just a second or two. What were you just worrying about - that thing you just kept mulling over and over in your mind that you just cannot seem to put out of it? To worry means you pass over something with repeated focus, almost as though you were wearing a "rut" into it just by the frequency of thought or attention you are giving it. In some respects, worry is understandable and kind of productive. When you cannot figure out the solution to the puzzle before you, you "worry" on the solution because you know it is there - you just have to recognize it. In thinking it through, you either pick up the right piece and place it correctly, or you find the five-letter word which fits the letter combo perfectly. What that form of "worrying" produced was a solution which was possible because of something you already possessed - you just needed to recall that information or notice the solution was right there before you. 

Most of the "worrying" we do is of a different sort, though. It is the type of worry where we "borrow" from tomorrow's sets of issues and bring them in today's focus. In other words, we compound today's issues with tomorrow's "what-if" scenarios. What if it rains? What if we don't get as much in our paycheck as we hoped for? What if the person I like doesn't like me? What if I don't get the job? What if my possessions aren't enough to sustain me when I am lonely, depressed, anxious, or just plain in need of entertainment? There are lots and lots of worries, but most of them are just not really intended to be our focus in life. These are the ones we need to learn to sort out and leave where they belong - in the past or the future!

I wonder how many of us multiply our frustrations and fears in life because we just create chaos with all our "frequent changes" and "chaotic clamor"? We cannot settle on this or that, constantly being drawn to the next "thing" we believe will fill some open space in our heart, that will create a sense of peace in a tumultuous time or give us some satisfaction when we are just craving something a little bit beyond our reach. The pressures mount and we find ourselves adding to today's worries by "borrowing" some from tomorrow, or "recalling" some from yesterday. We are actually "multiplying" our frustration and anxiety, creating an increasing sense of emotional chaos within our minds until we find ourselves about to declare ourselves on "overload". You won't find me ever denying change as either inevitable or good. In fact, I believe change is kind of a refreshing thing as long as we can let go of what belongs in the past, stop focusing so much on what lays ahead in the future, and focus on getting today right. Just sayin!

Toiling or Trusting?

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7)

If you are anything like me, you have those moments of worry or doubt that plague you from time to time. As much as you want to trust God for the outcome, you just find it hard to let go of the worry. You mull over the stuff until it is a constant nagging in your brain and your heart. A sense of God's wholeness is the furthest thing you are experiencing at that moment, but it is the one thing you long for more than anything. So, how do we go from being so overwhelmed by the circumstances of life to the place where we sense his wholeness in our lives? Maybe it comes when we are finally willing to let God know our concerns, not holding them so close to the breast, and really 'get real' with him about the things that give us so much anxious concern.

I looked at this passage in many different translations this morning, but one thing stood out to me from The Living Bible: "6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. 7 If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus." We are actually supposed to tell God our needs - not just stew in them. We are to follow our asking with our thanksgiving, because God has never once failed to be concerned about what concerns us. The thing I realized that this is a conditional passage - there is that "If you do this..." portion that makes it conditional. If we bring our concerns to him with an attitude of thanksgiving for the answers, we experience his peace. It isn't thanksgiving for what he has done, but what he will do. In other words, we thank him in advance of the answer.

Is that kind of foreign to some of us? We were likely raised to thank someone when they did something for us, but to thank them in advance of the answer...do we do this that often? If we bring God our concerns, believing he will answer, we find thanksgiving in ADVANCE of the fulfillment of the need comes naturally. Why? We have learned to trust that God is as concerned about what concerns us as we are! He wants to deal with those concerns and we can know his peace, as a result. What this does for us is keep our hearts and minds at rest - we no longer 'toil over' those plaguing thoughts any longer. We allow God to do the 'toiling' while we stand 'trusting' him to do so. Just sayin!

Give - not in part - but in whole

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (I Peter 5:7)

Anxieties and worries don't just disappear - they have to be dealt with, but it isn't always our effort that is needed to deal with them. All will probably agree that the most beneficial thing to do is to take them to God in prayer. Some will think there are going to be times when you just gotta fix things yourself. I have to challenge that this morning. There is never a time when our anxieties and worries are best dealt with in our own power. As we take them to God in prayer, there will be times when he asks us to do something, but that doesn't mean we are 'fixing' the problem on our own. It means we were humble enough to recognize we don't possess all the knowledge, have all the power, or understand fully how to 'deal with' the issue at hand - then when God tells us how to deal with it, we do as we are told!

Sometimes we will be told to lay it right there at the foot of the cross and leave it alone. We are supposed to take our hands off of the issue and just let God be God. At others, he will show us where we may take action, then we are supposed to take it. Probably one other thing occurs as we take these things to God - he shows us where any of those anxieties or worries are 'unfounded' - our mind working things over and over again until we are tied up in knots. The anxiety is real - we get so emotionally invested in what is churning within our minds and hearts, that we just cannot stop it. It is like a self-fueling fire - it just doesn't burn out or go away. Those are the worries we definitely don't want to carry - for they will consume us if we continue to carry them ourselves.

Notice that God doesn't tell us to give him the worries and cares that we don't think we can deal with on our own. He tells us to give him ALL of them - the big and little ones, the real and imagined ones, the ones that leave us hurting and the ones that bring fear. ALL of them - none excluded. He may take some and work on them himself. He may show us where we can take action ourselves - but it doesn't mean we still carry the worry ourselves. It means he is enabling us to take the necessary steps to be free of those worries once and for all. For example, if we are in debt, we bring that worry to God and he may ask us to cut up our credit cards - to begin to live within our means. The debt will be worked off in time - maybe because he helps us find a debt consolidation program, or a second job, or overtime at our present one. We do what he tells us to do - but not before we take the worry to him.

Give ALL to him - hold nothing back. Don't believe the self-help gurus who proclaim "God helps those who help themselves" because that is nowhere in the Bible! Just sayin!

Share that burden

Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong. Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command. If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody. (Romans 6:1-3)

It is easy to share another's happiness or celebration, isn't it? It isn't as easy to share their troubles or problems. A gentle and humble response to another's shortcomings is just as hard, isn't it? The spirit of man can be downcast and burdened beyond one's ability to stand against. The heart becomes darkened by steps taken in the wrong direction and the spirit can be weighed down by woes beyond one's own control. We are told to come alongside another who is overcome and lighten their burden - if even in the slightest sense. It isn't so we will receive glory and praise, but because it is the right 'action' of a believer's heart toward another who is caught up in sin, weighed down under burdens, or in difficult circumstances. Why? It is what Jesus would do and he lives in you!

Do we have to assume the troubles of the other individual in order to fulfill this command? Not at all - we just need to help them as God leads us. The one burdened is attempting to carry much more than they can handle alone - in whatever form that burden may manifest. Burdens come in the form of anxieties, trials, mishaps, shifting circumstances, downturns, and even hindrances. How can we make a difference in these? Perhaps we can pray - that is a good start, but have you ever heard that sometimes we need to 'put feet to our prayers'? There might be some 'action' God asks of us in the form of easing that burden. When we 'act upon' that urging of the Spirit of God within, we are beginning to share that burden just a bit. Does it become 'our' burden to bear? No, it is still theirs, but they aren't bearing it alone any longer - they have Jesus and us on their side!

Does sharing another's burdens always make 'sense'? Not always - in fact, there are times when we have similar anxieties and just have no idea how 'sharing' those can actually help either one of us. As we open up to each other, sharing those burdens and missteps, we can begin to see we are not in the challenge alone. We might know we have Jesus on our side, but to realize someone else shares similar circumstances and is struggling in similar ways, we can begin to pray and care for each other. Somehow that lightens our burden - to not just pray for our own issues, but to begin to pray for someone else's burden. We might not feel the lifting of our burden immediately, but the more we come alongside each other, the more we will feel our burden lifting. I don't know how Jesus does that, but he somehow eases our burden as we begin to be there for one another. So, be open to share a burden as God leads. When you choose to serve one another as God leads, you are choosing to serve Jesus. Just sayin!

Settled, Sure, and Sane

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7)

When we are presented with alternatives, we are being given a choice. If you have ever gone into a restaurant with pages and pages of menu items, bound together in a spiral bound book of sorts, you probably have been so frustrated by all the choices you just chose your old "stand by" because you couldn't read through them all before the waitress returned! When the choices are many, the anxiety associated with making the "right" choice is significantly higher than when the choices are simply this or that. At least we stand a 50/50 chance of getting our choice right with the latter example, but with the spiral-bound menu of choices, who knows what the odds might be? There is something to be said about "limiting the choices", isn't there? I don't give small children a litany of choices - I present one or the other. Why? When presented with each choice, they usually want them both - when presented with fifty items, they want them all - but they can only have one! It is much easier to teach right choices when the options are fewer! God knows this, too! So does the enemy of our souls! He knows presenting us with so many choices which baffle our minds is a good place to get us in the middle of a muddle. He likes it when we are in a muddle!

Increased demands are just as befuddling to us as are too many choices! When the demands on our schedules, skills, or services are many, the anxiety associated with the increasing demand increases. If choices and demands can increase our anxiety to fever-pitch, maybe it is time we learn how to collaborate with the only one who can really direct us to the right choice and settle us into a place of inner peace in the midst of the chaos. Learning to shape our choices and stressors into prayers is fundamental to keeping ourselves out of the middle of the muddle. Too many think prayers have to be these elaborate, well-orchestrated, divine sounding, stop all activity, get on your knees kind of words lifted to the heavens. The Lord has heard more "fly-by" prayers from me in my times of increased demand and uncertain choices than I can shake a stick at! If I waited to get down onto my knees, I'd never get things sorted out! All God desires is for us to make our concerns known to him - he doesn't care if it is on the "fly" or on our knees! He just wants the opportunity to connect.


I cannot tell you how many times I have been in the middle of a mess of stress and just asked him to give me guidance - short and sweet. Right there, he begins to settle in around me with his peace and I can focus on what matters, getting direction on how to proceed and then it seems like the stressors get put into the right perspective. When things are in the right perspective - or at least I can see them from that perspective - they look a lot less "anxiety-laden" than they did before! "It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life." Life happens at a pace we can barely manage sometimes. In those moments of "over-activity" and "increased anxiety", it is good to re-center, re-connect, and re-commit. We change our focus from the increasing demand and innumerable choices toward Christ and his leading in those moments. We take a moment or two to just offer up those prayers and then just listen. We may think we don't have the time to listen but remember this - the amount of time you invest in listening equates to less time in the midst of the muddle. Re-committing is really the outcome of the first two - when we get our focus right and allow our hearts to be connected to the one who knows the answers, the ability to make the choice in front of us or deal with the demand which is the most urgent becomes apparent. Most of the time it only takes a moment to allow the sense of God's wholeness to permeate our inner core and settle us right down. Just sayin!

I need to talk to you about this, God...

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (Philippians 4:6-7)

What makes you anxious? There is something - even if you are the most well-balanced, totally 'put together' individual. It might not be consistent, but there is some stress in your life on occasion that makes you a bit on edge. There are others of us that are anxious all the time - there is not a moment that you don't feel 'on edge' and about to be crushed by the stress you feel. Anxiety is a feeling that impacts our functioning - at least at some point in our lives. God wants to address that anxiety - through is Word, by his presence, and with his overwhelming peace that cannot be moved by anything.

There will always be 'forces' attacking us. When it is only one thing that causes us stress, we can usually handle it. When the attacks come to us on many fronts, we can become overwhelmed by the multitude of 'forces' moving against us. Stress mounts, building to levels that make it hard to even 'think through' the issues at hand. Been there, done that, bought the shirt, wore it out! Anxiety isn't a sin - it comes to all of us. It is a signal something is about to occur that must be addressed. What we do with it when it comes is the important thing we must address. 

We are in need of time with God - taking the things that are about to overwhelm us to him. If we fail to take this much needed time, what happens? The anxiety builds and builds, until we are about to 'go under' because of the intensity of feelings associated with it. God wants to hear about the things that give us 'cause to pause'. Pause for what? To talk with God about the things that are bugging you! We may feel it is not important to pray about the things that cause us stress - that we somehow have to figure it out ourselves. The truth is that God wants to hear all about it.

God doesn't want us to meditate on the negative - the things that give us anxiety - but to talk with him about them. Why? These thoughts are not good for us - he wants us to move into the power of a sound mind. Prayer (talking with God) breaks the hold these thoughts have on us. No prayer - no peace. That may seem a bit harsh, but things unspoken, dwelt upon over and over again, will eventually overwhelm us. To admit we don't know what to do, that we don't feel we have what it takes, isn't a sign of weakness - it is a sign of strength. We admit we need our mind renewed. A change of thought pattern is often the beginning of the deliverance we desire, but we won't change that pattern alone. We need God and his peace. Just sayin!

Sleep well, my friends

The saying is true: Bad dreams come from too much worrying, and too many words come from foolish people. (Ecclesiastes 5:3)

Are you a dreamer? I don't have many dreams I can recount when I awaken. Most of the time I simply have a slight memory for a short period of time and then as I fully awaken, those memories fade away as quickly as the day dawns. Yet, I have dreams - mine are just 'daytime dreams'. I think on things at night when I awaken, mulling them over and over in my mind until I find a solution to the thing I am contemplating. If I need to make something out of this or that, I think on the many 'solutions' to the 'making'. I don't create the thing while I am asleep, but rather when I am fully awake, firmly committed to the design I imagine will work, and committed to beginning to put the idea into motion. 

Bad dreams - do we have these on occasion? Some people suffer from traumatic circumstances that leave them with haunting 'nightmares' of the events. Imagine never being able to go to sleep without the 'fear' of reliving the worst event of your lifetime. Most of us would resist the tiredness of our bodies and minds in hopes we'd never drift off into that state that would allow those images and memories to haunt us. We'd fight sleep because we would know the 'fight' of our sleep. I am not referring to these type of 'terror' dreams today, though. I am referencing the 'bad dreams' that come through what Solomon aptly referred to as 'too much worrying'. The type of 'dreams' that surface because we mull over things best left 'un-mulled'. 

Do you know that the term 'mull' actually means more than to turn something over and over in our minds? It also carries the meaning of making a mess or failure out of something - probably because the more we ruminate on something that causes us anxious worry, the worse we imagine the outcome will be. We actually bring on the 'mess' by all the 'mulling'. Bad dreams come to those who are continual 'mullers'. I used to kid with my mom on occasion, telling her she'd worry about not having anything to worry about. Sometimes we 'mull' over the things that we have little control over - thinking our worrying would somehow change the circumstances. The truth is - if we don't 'own' the issue, we the ones to 'fix' the issue. 

When we begin to 'give over' ownership of the issues in our lives, the one who takes control of those things begins to settle our minds and hearts. Jesus doesn't look lightly upon us 'owning' what we cannot fix. He makes a way for the 'fix' even when we don't know we don't own the problem! Once he shows us we aren't the right 'owners' of the issue, and we let it go, he takes it into his hands. There is much to be learned in letting go, but perhaps the best lesson we can learn is how to get the best night's sleep of our lives! Just sayin!

Today or Tomorrow

Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks. And God’s peace, which is so great we cannot understand it, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. 

(Corrie Ten Boom)

I don't want to brag or anything, but I haven't worried about anything in the last ten minutes! Yes, I am making light of a much bigger problem, but it is good to laugh once in a while, isn't it? Worry indeed robs us of our strength - the strength we need in order to face whatever we are going through today. I used to worry a great deal about what tomorrow would bring - especially when I was working. Every new day meant new challenges - some I didn't want to face, others I actually enjoyed. As a kid, I had a terrible problem of nail biting. It was a nervous habit - done unconsciously, without real effort, and was quite difficult to stop. 

Mom bought me one of those flat, smooth stones with the divot in the middle called a 'worry stone' to keep in my pocket. I was supposed to fetch it from my pocket, place it in my hand and run my thumb over it repeatedly every time I felt the urge to bite my nails. Let me just tell you right now - it didn't work. I used this foul-tasting iodine-based stuff you painted on your nails and cuticles - it didn't work. Mom would give my hands a gentle slap when she saw me gnawing the nails - it didn't work. Do you know what worked? Being in microbiology class one day, doing a culture from the stuff under my nails, and seeing just how many of those gross, scary looking microbes actually took up residence there! If I wasn't going to break the habit for any other reason, the 'fear' of ingesting one of those ugly things under the microscope actually helped me break the habit.

Was I biting my nails because I worried a bit? Maybe so, because I really was quite insecure as a child and teenager - even well into my adulthood. Was this insecurity based in anything real? Not at all - I just didn't like myself very well, didn't believe others would ever like me, and didn't know how to 'fix' that. If you looked at me today, you would never believe I grew up with all these insecurities. It is amazing what we can make our minds 'worry over' in our lifetime. Some of the silliest stuff comes to mind as I think back, as I am sure you have a few tales to tell, as well. Worry is very seldom based in fact. Even when I looked at the bank account as a single mom in nursing school, wondering how I was going to make each payment that was coming due, that worry was never based in fact. It was based in a lack of trust in the one who held the future squarely in HIS hands.

Sometimes our worries are legit - we have done something we shouldn't have done and now the consequences are coming back on us like a tornado about to suck the very life out of us. Even when they are 'reality-based', we don't have to settle into worry or anxiety over them - we can take them to Jesus, ask for his forgiveness, then listen carefully as he guides us through what to do next. We have all probably allowed way too many 'todays' to be taken from us because we were overly concerned with all those 'tomorrows' instead. It is time to break that cycle of letting tomorrow rob us of our peace today. Put your worries on HIS shoulders - test him with the burden you are carrying right now. I bet you will see that he makes your load lighter, the path you are to take a little clearer, and the 'way out' a bit easier than if you were to continue to follow that path of worry any further. Just sayin!

Time to let it go

We all have "relationship" issues - no one is really immune to them - even if they only last for a while. One such 'issue' is something referred to as worry or anxiety. What does worry have to do with relationship? Glad you asked! Worry must be understood in order to see the impact it has on us - both in our relationship with God and in relationship with others. Worry can be defined as those things (thoughts, attitudes, actions) that choke or strangle us - consuming our energy, and thereby choking the "life" out of our relationships. Worry impacts relationships because it is a behavior that "takes away from" the time or energy one puts into relationship - because our attention, thoughts, and activities are directed toward whatever it is we are worrying over. 

Worry weighs us down; a cheerful word picks us up. (Proverbs 12:25)

An old-fashioned definition of worry is to touch or "bother" something repeatedly. The idea of "bothering" or "repeatedly revisiting" something impacts relationships because what we have a tendency to revisit would sometimes be better off left alone. There are things we come back to over and over again that should have been left at the feet of Jesus a long time ago. Whenever we find ourselves "bothering" that issue again, we reopen wounds, impact trust, etc. Worry becomes our enemy - undoing some package of garbage and re-examining it time and time again. The stuff we should have been able to be free of long ago is actually a weight around our necks.

Probably the most telling definition of worry as it applies to impacting relationships is that of us subjecting someone or something to persistent attention - in other words...nagging! Sometimes we have a tendency to "overdo" our attentiveness to a particular issue - "worrying" it to death - and then we don't even leave it alone! This only serves to repeatedly direct attention to something that has very little opportunity to yield much in the way of results. The thing is done already - it hard to 'undo' what has been done - but we can move past it. If we are to do that, we cannot pay it such persistent attention.

Most of us think of worry as that "niggling" feeling we call "anxiety". This is an accurate definition, as well - it also has an impact on our relationships (both with God and with each other). Whenever we find it a "huge effort" to proceed or make forward progress, we are usually struggling with some type of "anxiety" over the forward movement we need to be making, but find we 'just cannot'. Fret as we might, we can actually change very little in our life by all that fretting. It would be better to spend some time with wise counsel, the Word, and in prayer. In the end, we would have an ordered, progressive approach to that which is making us anxious in the first place.

Worry only serves to weigh us down. It presents huge emotional burdens that have a negative effect of disheartening the one under the weight. It saps our strength and energy. In the end, we experience "relational" failures that bring "rifts" that seem to drive us apart (both with our fellow man and with God). God reminds us to cast our burdens (weights) on him. Where do we find cheerful words? Wise counsel, time alone with God, in his word - but not all that we hear will seem "cheerful". A word spoken or made alive from the pages of the word of God in the appropriate timing is able to produce "cheerfulness" inside our weary soul. It may not be causing us to jump up and down with "glee", but it sets us in the right direction, and that brings rest to our weariness. Wherever there is rest, there is "cheer". Just sayin!

Anti-corrosive barrier

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. 

 (Philippians 4:6-7 MSG)

Honestly answer this: When you are faced with the type of things that cause you to worry even a little, is your actual first response to those worries to 'worry' or 'pray'? Honestly, I think most of us might admit it is to worry, then to pray when we finally realize we are worrying! The Apostle Paul experienced some rather tough trials in his time in service to the Lord. He was jailed, brought before magistrates to give an account for his actions, engaged with others in ministry that had a hard time getting along with each other, and he faced physical ailments in his body...just to name a few of the things that might have caused him just a little bit of worry. We are directed to live a life that is free of fretting and worrying. Instead of worrying - we are to pray. Okay, you are already saying, "Easier said than done." I am right there with you! I often struggle with the worrying long before I remember, or trust him enough, to turn it over to the Lord for his answer!

Fretting is a corrosive process - it affects us by gnawing away at the peace and faith we have, even when we think we have some 'anti-corrosive' barrier erected in our lives. The corroding effect of fretting on life's problems eventually eats a hole through our faith, exposing us to doubt, frustration, fear, etc. Fretting behavior is quite easy to recognize - it is a behavior that is marked by being even a little bit agitated. I know when I am in a fretting state when I look at my own inability to "settle down" and focus as I should or normally would in the situation. We are given a directive to 'not worry'. Why does scripture refer to the process of both fretting and worrying? Don't they have a similar meaning? Well, they are close, but worry carries with it the idea of causing yourself torment! In other words, you are "doing yourself in" by the behavior you are engaging in! Every move you make is like you are dragging yourself along, no energy or passion in the movement, just barely making progress at all. Your steps are tentative and extremely guarded.

The "antidote" to corrosive thoughts/actions and self-tormenting activities is supposedly prayer. Not just the "Dear God, please intervene..." kind of prayer, but a pouring out of our heart before God with the nitty-gritty stuff that has us "wigged out" in the first place. It is an acknowledgement that we aren't feeling very 'easy' over the situation. It is an intense opening up of ourselves to God in honest exposure of the things that are acting as a corrosive influence in our thought life. In so doing, there is this promise of an eventual "washing away" of the corrosiveness of fretting and worry,  and a refreshing peace beginning to settle down in place of that corrosive thought pattern or activity we had previously been involved in.

Christ displaces worry at the center of our lives - amazing thought and a totally amazing action on our behalf! Don't lose sight of of the fact that when worry or fretting gets a foothold, Christ is displaced from the center of our lives - he becomes a second thought, definitely not our first. When we are honest about our struggles, we are asking Christ to come back to "center" in our lives - refocusing us on the one who IS peace and GIVES peace and BRINGS peace. So, the next time you find yourself a little agitated on the inside, or in a place of self-torment, perhaps the best thing to do is to turn your focus toward "center" again. As long as we keep Christ there, the corrosiveness of whatever life is dishing out will be lessened and the abundance of his grace will deliver us from the self-torment of our own fickle thoughts. Gotta love it! Just sayin!

Muddle no more

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. 

(Matthew 6:34)

The other day, mom asked me about my BFF's father - if he worried about her like she worries about me. If I don't make it home at a very specific time, she begins to imagine I am in a multiple car pile up and never coming home to her. She has always been one to imagine the worst - even when I was a small child. We used to joke that she worried over what there is to worry about! Worry is a very real thing - because we don't always know what the outcome will be. Would you say you actually know what God is doing in your life right here and now? Are you so consumed with worrying about what might happen sometime into the future that you are missing out on the here and now of God's tremendous love? Worry is a limiting device in our lives - it consumes time and energy that honestly would be best spent in other ways.

Look at Jesus' words - give your ENTIRE attention to what God is doing RIGHT NOW. The focus we maintain today determines the response we will have when we face our tomorrow. That is the key to living strongly rooted lives - focus. If God has our entire attention, there is no room for worry, anxiety, calculations, and schemes. If our focus is correct today, our pathway will be directed by God in our tomorrows - no amount of worry will change his oversight. Even if the pathway is a little rocky or riddled with all kinds of jagged things just waiting to "trip us up", he is there to help us deal with whatever comes up. We don't get caught unaware of the "pathway objects" that attempt to pull us down because he is pointing them out to us along the way - maybe not miles in advance, but quick enough for us to avoid them.

During his ministry on earth, Jesus had spent a great deal of time educating his disciples (his followers) in kingdom living. He had elaborated on the necessity for being "real" in their walk - not being caught up in the pursuit of things that fluff up their ego and diminish the glory he receives from the testimony of their lives. He pointed out that we disciples can be ignorant in our prayer life - using all kinds of "formulas" to attempt to communicate with God, but God really only desires the transparency of our heart. We also do something like 'worrying' our prayers - muddling over the mess of life in prayers - all the while not really handing them over to him, but continuing to chew upon them over and over again. To muddle over those issues time and time again is to say we don't think God wants them, could handle them, or that he is more capable than we are with them!

In addition to these principles of living, he reminds us that there is a connection between prayer and what we do. The concept of "treasure" is often referenced by Jesus as he speaks with his disciples - reminding us that wherever our treasure is (what holds our attention - even if that attention is worry) is exactly where we will end up spending our time! You might be surprised to hear Jesus remind us not to worry about missing out on stuff in life. When our focus is right from the beginning, we will enjoy all the treasures along the way that God has provided for our good. God's kids need to get focused on what God is doing today! It is not about yesterday, or even about tomorrow. Kingdom living is about today - the events, the moments of opportunity, the lessons to employ - all exposed to us in the very passing of this day.

Since we cannot affect yesterday (it has passed us by), nor really be assured of our tomorrow (we don't have any guarantee it will come) - today is our focus. In our "today", God needs to be the primary focus. What new aspect of his care are we realizing today? What lesson about his provision are we given the opportunity to embrace? Who is God placing in our path that needs to see forgiveness modeled so they can better understand the forgiveness of God? Today awaits! Focus your mind on Christ and see what riches are laid up in the day that stands before you. Let go of the worry, because it will only hold you back. Just sayin!

Nothing means "no thing"

If we have been in church for a while, we probably have heard the verse which tells us to "be anxious for nothing", right? Do we know the context of the verse, though?  Probably not. Let me set this up for us a little.  Paul has been talking to the believers at Philippi about those in this world who may oppose their beliefs, ridiculing them for their faith, and even persecuting them because they are followers of Jesus.  He likens them to "dogs who run in packs" looking for someone to pounce on and maul with their viscous attacks, throwing around their "religious pedigrees".  I like when he tells the believers he will make it through all the pain and suffering he will be enduring all because of his choice to follow Jesus when he says, "...nothing will stand in my way because he has grabbed me and won't let me go."  He is referring to Jesus holding him tightly through all circumstances - regardless of how painful they may appear, he will rise above them simply because God has him in his arms!  Those who reject the cross will often oppose it with great force - Paul encourages us to stand up against that force with a "force" they won't understand or be able to counter with their attacks!  The instruction he gives is to stand strong, but do it by keeping our "gentle nature" - so that all people will know what it looks like to walk in the footsteps of Jesus!

Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come. And know that the peace of God (a peace that is beyond any and all of our human understanding) will stand watch over your hearts and minds in Jesus, the Anointed One. (Philippians 4:6-7 VOICE)

Pray about everything.  How many of us actually do this? Yes, when crisis comes our way, with the "suddenness" of the moment catching us by surprise, we lift prayers.  It is like we suddenly feel the turbulence in the plane and begin to pray the plane will not fall from the sky!  We are "crisis" oriented at times - prayer not being one of our top priorities when things are going "right".  Yet, if we understand what Paul is instructing, it can revolutionize our lives!  God is just about silly with glee whenever we take time to just talk with him! He already knows our needs, but there is something which happens in us when we express them to him - it isn't that our prayers unlock heaven's gates!  We get our focus changed when we pray - allowing us to shift our trust from self to the one who already has the problem handled!

Talk to God - that is what prayer is anyway - it is communication between two people deeply in love with each other!  How does love grow if there is no communication? If we don't communicate (and it goes both ways), we will find ourselves drifting away from the one who mattered so much to us at one time.  Followers don't get distracted in their following because there are these frequent times of reconnecting with the one they are following!  Sometimes it isn't what we share as much as it is about what it is we choose to bear.  We often bear things inside for way to long without ever even admitting to ourselves they are there!  It is like we think if we ignore the feelings, don't deal with the attitude, or just simply turn a blind eye to the struggle, it will somehow just get bored and go away!  Truth is, nothing ignored really goes away - it just looks for another opportunity to make itself known!

Most of the time, it is the battle which rages in our hearts and minds which gives us the greatest nightmares.  Heart is just a fancy word for our emotions and we all know how much unrest our emotions can bring.  Minds is the all-inclusive term used to describe thought, reasoning, intelligence, and meditation.  If we want to do well in either of these arenas in our lives, we need to get both under control - not ours, but his!  What happens when we finally talk to him about what it is we are sensing ("feeling"), we can finally put a "name" to the ideas we are entertaining by those emotions and we can begin to have those emotions shift from "unreasonable" into the "reasonable" category.  Peace begins to settle in because when we invite the person of peace into our midst, peace is the prevailing force which enters with him!

What makes us anxious?  If we believe what Paul says, it is "things".  No revelation there!  Things come and things go. All have the potential to make life a little haggard at times! We have no greater power over "things" (and even other people) than we do when the peace of Christ begins to settle our minds and hearts in the midst of "things" getting in our way.  All anxiety is really based in this matter of trust - what or who we are placing our trust in at the moment.  Believe your emotions and you will find the situation overwhelming and unbelievably hard.  Believe your thoughts at times and you will see yourself as little, frail, and unable.  Believe your thoughts at other times and you will see yourself as needing no one because you have things under control.  Either way, we see a different perspective when we finally begin to talk to God about the circumstances (even the mundane ones) of our lives.  

Nothing stands in the way of the one securely in the arms of Jesus.  Nothing overtakes the thoughts and emotions of the one who shares what they are going through with the one who holds them so close!  Nothing!  Just sayin!

Overshadowed?

Anxiety is just a fancy word for worry, but worry is a fancy word for trying to do things in your own power or ability! Let's be truthful here - we all struggle with letting go of the reins on some stuff in our lives - maybe a little more at some times than others.  If we are feeling kind of "strong" at the moment, we may not feel the need to seek God's direction, nor even give it a second thought.  If we are a little "weak" and a whole lot of emotional upheaval is brewing deep within, we may want his perspective on the situation a little quicker than later!  Why is that?  It is probably because we have a tendency to "work things out" in our own strength whenever we "feel" we might just be able to and then when we become pretty convinced by the building pressures that our way has not really accomplished the goal, we cry out under the pressure.  At the root of being overtaken by anxiety is this idea of being overshadowed with "self-ability".  

When anxiety overtakes me and worries are many, Your comfort lightens my soul. (Psalm 94:19 VOICE)

Anxiety has a way of creeping into a situation - maybe not really present there to begin with, but as time passes, things spiral out of control, and we begin to sense things aren't going as planned, we can begin to feel this overshadowing effect - we are about to be "overtaken" by the worries of the moment.  Any place in our lives where we rely upon our own self-ability to get us through, we are relying on a "faulty power" to bring the desired results.  The problem with "faulty power" is the lack of stability that power brings.  I have a flashlight in the house which works about 95% of the time. It has something wrong with it, though.  The other 5% of the time, I have to "coax" it to work by jiggle it a little, thereby rearranging the batteries, or just giving it a good thump on something to make it glow!  It has something wrong with it and the "power" is interrupted - it is faulty.

On the surface, the flashlight looks reliable.  Even when I flip the switch, it performs reliably the majority of the time.  Yet, when I may most need it, it could fail me because the source of the light can be interrupted by whatever keeps this flashlight from being reliable!  The same is true in our own lives.  We can rely upon the same way of getting thing done over and over again, until one day the light just isn't there when we need it!  It isn't the light which is absent, but the connection which needs to be made in order for the light to be present.  We avoid this connection when we are too reliant upon what we know or can do on our own in order to accomplish the task at hand.  We don't "need" any other source outside of ourselves.  In time, self-reliance will do something we may not realize - it makes us "count on" what has limited, or interrupted connection with the real source of power.

Anxiety can overtake us any time we are more reliant upon what we think or feel than we are upon looking to the source of reliable "power".  By definition, anxiety is some form of uncertainty.  As long as we are "certain" about our ability or strength, we plunge ahead.  When we begin to feel the ice cracking beneath our feet, we can stand there in our own confidence, or we can admit our strength may not be enough to rescue us this time!  Nothing we stand upon apart from Christ alone will give us a sure foundation and stable footing in our endeavors.  We will always feel some overshadowing of uncertainty when we fail to give him first place in our planning or performance.  Anxiety comes when we realize we don't have the "advantage" we thought we had.  It is like when I went into the candy jar as a kid, stole a few pieces of black licorice, consumed them quickly while mom was away, then thought I'd never be found out.  The moment she returned, she knew!  How do moms do that?  I guess I thought she had some super-human powers, but have you ever seen what black licorice does to your mouth, or smelled someone's breath after they have consumed it?  Duh!  She didn't have magical powers - she had perception!

Anxiety has a way of "over-shadowing" all the actions we take whenever those actions are taken outside of planning with Christ at the center.  God isn't against a good plan - he just wants us to bring those plans under his oversight.  When his oversight is there, our plans are more likely to succeed.  Why? We aren't reliant upon "faulty power".  Peace is disturbed when we are reliant upon what we know, believe, trust in, apart from Christ.  My pastor has asked each of us to consider what "story" is being written in our lives this year.  Many of us have heard the little quip of starting a new year with a "fresh slate".  The purpose of a fresh slate is to rewrite the story - or maybe to begin to write it with a new focus.  If we bring all the past chapters into our present story, we might be over-shadowed by what we have or haven't accomplished in our "story".  We can become too self-reliant if the story has been "good" up to this time, or we can be too fearful if the story has been a little "tumultuous".  Either way, we need a new "focus" in our story - as an author might put it - we need a better plot!

Anxiety has no place in the heart of a believer.  It is there only to show us we have become too reliant upon ourselves, or that we need to reach out to make connection again.  If we are being overshadowed by anything right now, it is time to shed some light into the story!  Just sayin!

No cape and mask for me

I saw this cute post on Facebook the other day which made me chuckle a little until I realized I kind of fit this scenario in my life now and again!  On the post was a little cartoon of a cape festooned, mask-wearing little girl with the caption: "Anxiety Girl....Able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound."  Not too many days go by when things don't come up which could give me cause to worry a little, or experience just a little bit of anxiety.  How about you?  What we choose to do with our anxiety may just make all the difference in the outcome of the day though.  We can get all wound up by it and give into the stress it puts on our bodies, bearing it in tight shoulders, stiff neck, gnawed inner lip, sweaty palms, and gastric distress.  We could put forth lots of extra effort to rid ourselves of the stress by working out to the point of sweat-dripping exhaustion at the gym, or throw ourselves into the throws of over-eating by burying ourselves head-first into a gallon of our favorite ice cream. Either way, it isn't quite the right response to our anxiety!  Maybe those of us who tend to the "Anxiety Girl" or "Anxiety Guy" just need to learn a different response to those things when they come our way!

Give all your worries to him, for he cares for you.  (I Peter 5:7 ERV)

I liked the cute little illustration because of a couple of things which I think speaks to a lot of us when it comes to dealing with our anxiety:

- We often don a mask to hide our worries.  Whatever it may be, we put on that mask and think it will hide all the stress mounting behind it.  If we can just give the appearance of being someone we are not at the moment, then maybe we can buffalo our way through the circumstances without anyone being the wiser about how we are really handling the stress-inducing pressures which are mounting. We probably use our "masks" to hide behind a little more than we realize, so I challenge us to consider a few things.  I actually found a website which tells people how to "hide their anxiety" whenever they cannot possibly be free from it!  The suggestions included stepping outside of the crowd for just a moment to "regroup" when the pressures of stress are building, giving yourself a "rub down" to relax your body, and visualizing yourself relaxing.  I don't know about you, but at best these only present the illusion that everything is okay on the inside.  You can get a massage if you like, but if you haven't dealt with the cause of the stress, the anxiety will come back!  Masks give the wearer a different appearance - they don't change who is behind the mask!

- Capes give us the appearance of being able to leap tall buildings, but really all they do is flap in the wind and make you look a little more "awesome" than you might really be!  When the first cartoonists began to illustrate superheroes festooned in capes billowing in the wind it was for this idea of giving some kind of "boosted impression of movement".  I think the illusion is created that the one wearing the cape is actually moving in a dynamic manner and capable of the most awesome movements.  In actuality, the cape is just a piece of material which covers one's backside!  In essence, the cape is a way of hiding the fact we have our tail between our legs and are trembling terribly on the inside!  In giving the impression we are both capable of "awesome or dynamic movement" we may not be called upon to actually make much movement at all!  Maybe this is why we don the cape so quickly - to give the impression we are ready to move, but all the while the cape is just billowing in the wind and we are stuck with our feet firmly planted on the ground!

Anxiety happens to the best of us and even to those who have "prepared" to face it.  When it comes, we can choose to "don" the mask and cape of the superhero ready to face the day, but if this is all we do, we are at best an anxiety-laden girl or guy "made up" to look like something we are not.  As scripture so well puts it, we need to cast or give or surrender our cares to Christ.  That doesn't sound too superhero-like to me - how about you?  Most superheroes stand their ground in their "mighty power" and hope to do their best against the presenting evil force of the hour.  My power is not sufficient to withstand the evil forces of the hour, my friends.  How about yours?  If you look at the three words I used above, you will see they all indicate a sense of being real about what we are facing because we cannot "cast", "give", or "surrender" when we are busy hiding our true feelings and selves behind the mask and cape.  As long as the cape and mask stay on, we are determining to remain in control of the circumstances which we'd probably do a whole lot better with if we'd just hand it over to the one who really controls all things with the very words he utters. So, one of the best means of being a little less of the Anxiety Girl or Guy is to learn to remove the mask and set down the cape. Just sayin!

Another take on anxiety

One of the emotions which can run rampant in our bodies is that of anxiety - even leading us into such serious attacks mimicking what appears to be a heart attack or some kind of severe reaction.  Many of our emotions are "strong" and don't give us as much of a challenge as this one emotion!  God created all emotion, with anxiety being the one connected with the sense we are somehow in harm's way.  There is something akin to a "niggling" which just alerts us to the need to do something differently or else we will be in the midst of some type of trouble we may not want to face.  As long as we don't get overwhelmed by this emotion, we are fine - but in today's world, the stress factors are much worse than they used to be and we tend to internalize our stress in ways we may not even recognize.  I am jaw clench kind of gal - clenching my jaw without any real thought just because the stress is building.  I then begin to feel it in my shoulders and neck, because the tension in my face is connected to my neck and that is connected to my shoulders - - - oh, you know the song!  Since this is one of those emotions which can give us a great deal of problems, we'd do well to learn how to keep it under control.  What we may not realize is just how much this emotion is really "our problem" and not caused by some external stimulus!

Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ That’s what those people who don’t know God are always thinking about. Don’t worry, because your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do. Then he will give you all these other things you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Tomorrow will have its own worries. (Matthew 6:31-34 ERV)

God designed the anxiety response to stimulate such a flow of hormones it is kind of like what is released when we get that fight or flight response - ramping up our response ability.  The trouble with anxiety is we seldom act upon it as we should - we simply allow it to build up and give us more pressure internally than we know what to do with.  We have probably heard it said worry is simply bringing into today the issues which belong to tomorrow.  If anyone has ever said that to you, they were quoting Jesus - each day having enough trouble of its own - tomorrow having its own set of worries.  The instruction Jesus gave was simply not to worry, but to trust.  This means the opposite of worry is trust, implying worry is a lack of trust (or perhaps a misplacement of our trust).  Much of the anxiety or worry we experience in life isn't because of some external threat, but because we have an issue with control.  We don't want to relinquish some control we might have and therefore, we hold on for dear life to things which we really have very poor control over in the first place!

Anxiety is one of those emotions which evoke the sense of "dread" we might describe at not knowing what is ahead.  It is that sense of apprehension something bad is about to happen.  For about a week now I have been narrowly avoiding some kind of accident with another vehicle or two on the roadways, with folks just either not paying attention, or being too quick to try to get somewhere.  Yesterday, while completely stopped at a red light, it happened! I was bumped from behind by a big SUV.  I was just sitting there!  The damage was minimal, leaving a little crease in my rear bumper, but what was worse was the anxiety leading up to this event.  Based on the inability to control the driving patterns of those around me, I have realized I get to my destination with jaw clenched, shoulders tight, and the like.  Why?  I am unable to control, feel threatened, and know something bad will happen if I am not at my best when driving on these streets!

What makes anxiety worse is the ability of the brain to hold onto memory.  I can recount the near misses over the past couple of weeks when someone has pulled right out in front of me, attempted to cross into my lane in fast moving traffic without seeing my in their blind spot, or even the times when it appeared someone was approaching me from behind at too great of a speed.  We don't need to actually have a memory associated with the impending "doom" we sense, we just need an accumulation of emotional memories similar to what we imagine will happen and the dread begins to build.  I used the illustration of the traffic issues because we can easily associate with those, but there are tons of other memories we have tucked away in the recesses of our brains, giving fodder to all manner of anxiety if we are to actually stop and think through our sense of dread over certain matters.  That time when the checkbook read zero and the bills came due.  The moment we received the bad report on a lab value or diagnostic test the doctor performed.  It doesn't matter what the emotional "memory" bank stored away, it can "come forward" whenever anything "remotely" similar threatens us again.

The worst part of this memory thing is we don't even know we are allowing it to happen, because much of anxiety is simply happening in our unconscious.  We don't consciously bring out those memories, fearing we will lose control in the current circumstances based on the evidence we can conclude from memories one through thirty on our memory drive!  We just "feel" the impending doom because these memories evoke the unconscious set of hormonal release which increases our anxiety level within.  Jesus says the remedy to this anxiety is to trust - to do so means we let go of being in control all of the time.  If you have ever done one of those "falling back into someone's arms" exercises, you know how hard it is to surrender control - to trust in what you cannot see.  The fact is, we may not "see" God at work, but we can see evidence he loves us and we can count on the fact he will never betray his love because it is impossible for him to do so.  We can count on the circumstances to not bring more than he knows we can handle - as long as we are handling those circumstances while he is leading us through them.  It isn't us taking God's hand and dragging him through the circumstance with us - it is us being taken into his arms and allowing him to carry us through them!  Just sayin!

Hey...you worrying on that again?

Instead of worry, we are to pray.  Instead of gloom and doom, we are to praise.  Instead of hatred, we are to walk in love.  In the Bible, there are a whole lot of "instead of" statements.  Sometimes we see them as don't do this, but do this; put off this, put on that; or don't go that way, but follow this path.  Regardless, of the wording, the intent is the same - we are NOT to pursue some course of action and we are to embrace readily another.  I don't think these words are in scripture for pleasant reading - they are instruction which will save us tons of regret if we will just heed them.  Today's "instead of" instruction is that of worry.  It is not "don't worry, be happy", but rather "don't worry, pray".  Too many times, we think if we will just pursue this or that which promises happiness, all our worries will just melt away.  Okay, I gotta ask . . . how's that working for you?

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.  (Philippians 4:6-7 MSG)

Paul's instructions are quite plain - don't worry or fret.  Don't torment yourself with disturbing thoughts.  Did you realize that was what worry was - tormenting thoughts?  I once heard we are "borrowing from tomorrow what belongs in tomorrow" when we worry.  I kind of like that illustration, for we bring the things which we imagine will torment us tomorrow into our today and then they actually do torment us because they weren't intended to be in our today!  Imagine the difference we'd experience if we'd just let the stuff which belongs in tomorrow to stay there until we are ready to deal with it right there!  

I like the way this passage describes letting our petitions and praises shape our worries into prayers.  Isn't this exactly how we allow God to take care of our concerns?  When we are open enough to share what is on our minds, God is willing to take them into his care.  What shapes you?  If you have a tendency to worry, you might just be surprised how much those things you are constantly muddling over in your mind have "shaped" your life.  What messes with your mind shapes you.  What you allow to "mess up" your mind also has a powerful effect on you!

What settles a mind?  Isn't it the peace of God?  How does the peace of God come?  It comes when we are willing to take the "muddle" in our minds and speak it forth to him.  It isn't "natural" to "give up" these thoughts, though. It is something which requires our concerted effort.  Since we gravitate toward "mulling things over and over" in our minds, it is only when we "focus" on getting them out of there that we are finally free from them.  This is probably why Paul instructed us to shape our worries into prayers and praise!  The formation of these worries into prayers and opportunities for praise is what actually allows us to finally get them into the open and into his hands.  This is the actual place of release.  It isn't in the muddling, it is in the praying and praising where release comes.

Worries are often not spoken.  They are maintained in the recesses of our minds and allowed to create all kinds of additional concerns than the original "worry" ever possessed.  This is the silliness of holding onto things God asks us to let go of in the first place - they rapidly become monumental things and we just don't realize how "out of control" they get until we FEEL out of control. The way "out" of worry is really not so much in what we "do", but in what we "express".  Prayer and praise are both expressions of our heart - they give "voice" to what is hidden within.  Worry is a "hidden" thing for most of us - if we want freedom from it, we might just need to bring what has been "hidden away" in our hearts for quite some time into the open!  Just sayin!

What's eating at you?

Too many times we allow anxiety and worry to be the "governing" factors in our lives.  My mom is a good "worrier".  We always used to say if she had nothing to worry about she'd worry about not worrying about something. Truth be told, many of us worry about stuff God already has dealt with, is taking care of behind the scenes, or just doesn't really want us focusing on in the first place.  Essentially, when we worry, we are putting our trust in something very untrustworthy, or have already done so.  Now, I am going to say something a little weird here, so pay attention - worry has a "spiritual" root to it.  Most of us would think of it having a "natural" root, but essentially, when we engage in the practice of worry, we are really admitting our resource is in something or someone other than Jesus.  Therefore, worry has a "spiritual" root - one which we need to get hold of!  Anytime there is misplaced trust, we will have worry.  

Cursed is the strong one who depends on mere humans, who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets God aside as dead weight.  He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie, out of touch with the good earth.  He lives rootless and aimless in a land where nothing grows. But blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God.  They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers—never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.  (Jeremiah 17:5-9 MSG)

Overcoming anxiety and worry requires us to rely upon God - pretty simple, huh?  So why is it so hard to actually do?  I think it might be because we don't understand the "purpose" for the emotion of anxiety.  God actually created this emotion, so it must be for a purpose, right?  So, in order to understand the correct way to "deal with it", we have to understand its purpose.  Short and sweet, anxiety is an emotion created to alert us to when we are getting off course with God and into something which will cause us some type of harm.  Let that one sink in a bit.  Anxiety is like an early-warning system - designed to alert us to our "drift".  Anxiety is designed to get us asking questions - to seek his wisdom about the cause.  Anxiety is then designed to open pathways of communication - to get us face-to-face with our Creator.

Our passage points us to a couple of salient points.  If we put our faith in the wrong things, we will sense anxiety way more than we may have a desire to. If we place our trust (faith) in the better things, anxiety seems to no longer be a plaguing force in our lives.  So, focus determines the level of anxiety we might be exposing ourselves to.  When we learn to trust in reliable things - we sense a whole lot less anxiety.  When we have misplaced trust - anxiety is on the rise.  Perception is based on what we have placed our trust in.  We "see" things based on what it is we trust in.  If we have misplaced trust, our perception is going to be a little fuzzy!

Therefore, it is the foundation we should focus on, not the problem.  When we focus on the problem, we see only what is above the surface.  The real issues in our lives are based on foundation, not really on what is "above the surface". A right foundation actually reduces anxiety.  The first step to establishing a firm foundation is being truthful.  First, we have to be truthful with ourselves, for no real growth comes until we are.  We can deny all kinds of evident reality, but it doesn't make it less of a reality!  Second, we have to be truthful with God.  He already knows where we don't have the best foundation in our lives, but he also already has prepared to lay a new one in its place! 

What affects our foundation more than anything else is an over-reliance upon feelings.  We get all twitter-pated about the silliest things - giving our heart, mind and attention to these things.  Then we wonder why we get so deep into anxiety and worry!  Our "feelings" got us off-course.  Our feelings produced cracks or fissures in the foundation we were counting on as being real and reliable in our lives.  When we begin to see the cracks, we panic!  When wrong foundations become the basis of our lives, we are afraid to look at them anymore.  We don't want to look inwardly because what is on the inside scares us!  God's greatest hope for us is to have us live IN the circumstances, not UNDER them.  If the foundation is right (trusting in the right stuff), we live IN them.  If the foundation is wrong, we often get buried UNDER the rubble, because the foundation cannot support the structure!

To some, anxiety has become a way of life, simply dismissing it as something which will always be part of their lives.  Truth is, it isn't in your genes, so you can be free of it!  Anxiety will not just go away - you have to take care of what is causing the anxiety.  In order to do that, you might need a change in perspective.  In order to do that, you have to evaluate what has become the foundation in your lives.  Discover that and you likely will discover why the anxiety exists in the first place!  Some things I think we can all learn:

- Getting into the Word and spending time with God on a daily basis is a "stress reducer" and therefore, reduces anxiety.  More importantly, it gives us a good foundation.  Centers us.  Strengthens us.

- We have to learn to rely upon what God as already provided.  Much anxiety in life is a matter of not using what we already have - we simply ignore the resources God has put at our disposal.  We need to learn to use what God gives us and stop trying to figure it all out on our own.

- Things like exercise (taking care of the physical man), fun times (laughter truly is a good medicine), and recreation (taking time "out") are important in reducing stress.  Reducing stress actually begins to help us see clearer - for stress just clouds our perspective.

- Most importantly - we need to "limit" our worry.  Only allow worry for the things which really matter.  Remember, it is an early warning sign for us, so use it to your advantage.  Live one day at a time, stop focusing so far into the future, or so deep into the past.  Live today.  When we get this perspective, much of what we borrow from tomorrow and bring into today will no longer be able to cause us concerns in the moment we are living right now.  Just sayin!