Worry and Faith

“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

“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 6:30-34  The Message

There are times that I really struggle with worry. I am a worrier. I have found that I worry even when there’s nothing to worry about. I’m hooked on worry. It’s somewhat my drug of choice. If there were an Olympics of worry, I’d get the Gold. Mostly, I worry about things that are essentially out of my control. I also try to figure out how to solve the problem, even when it may not be my problem to solve.  However, there is a big down side. Worry robs my sleep, my peace and my joy. At times, it also stops me from performing other tasks in my life, thereby producing more problems to worry about.

I used to believe that the issue was a lack of faith (another worry). If I just had more faith, then the worry would go away. I’m not so sure of that now. I do believe that God will see me through whatever problem that arises, I just don’t want the hassle of going through it. I know He’ll be there,  it’s the dread of the possible pain and upset that I fear. That’s where I fall down. What I should be doing is concentrating on Jesus. That’s even when the dread disappears. when Peter walked on water, he fell in when he concentrated on where he was rather than Who was with him.

God’s Lessons

A week or so ago I received an email from a missionary couple who had just returned to their field. They ran into a couple of rough spots upon their return and asked for prayer. No big deal, only this statement stuck out at me.

“…which has brought us to our knees wondering what the Lord is trying to teach us.”

It’s natural that when problems arise, we try to look for purpose or reason as to why the problem happened. Christians often look for that reason in a lesson from God. This makes every rough spot, every trial into a “teachable moment” from God. While I believe that times of trial can often be “teachable moments”, I question why we have to ask God what He is trying to teach us. If He is an all loving God, wouldn’t He just tell us what He is trying to teach us? First we must figure out what He is trying to teach us, then we must learn the lesson. Seems like a big waste to me.

Not every trying time is an intended lesson from God. God can use the trying times to teach us, mold us, and perfect us. Do I really need to wonder what God is trying to teach me? Probably not. I do, however, need to be open to His teachings. This is not simply a semantic shift. It is a major thought realignment.

We don’t learn life lessons one at a time. Contrary to what we may think single incidents may not always have a profound effect on our thinking.Life lessons (patience, humility,trust in God) are usually long term lessons that need to be reinforced over and over.