DOUBT is a wave driven and tossed by the wind ..
( hesitation, uncertainty, disbelief, suspicion, skepticism, faithlessness, distrust )
For several years a woman had been having trouble getting to sleep at night because she feared burglars. One night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. When he got there, he did find a burglar. ‘Good evening,’ said the man of the house. ‘I am pleased to see you. Come upstairs and meet my wife. She has been waiting ten years to meet you.
A burglar can steal from you once. Anxiety can steal from you for decades.
One of the worst things about anxiety is that it gives us spiritual amnesia: We forget who we are in Christ. We forget that as His coheirs, we have access to His power and glory, that when our priorities line up with His, He will meet our needs. This doesn’t mean we go from miracle to miracle in life. Rather, it means that whatever we are facing, we can rest assured that our heavenly Father is aware of it and will stick with us through it all, no matter what. He will even give us the grace and courage to face our challenges.
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
Doubters are tempted to dismiss those verses in Philippians, thinking that sort of approach to anxiety is nice, but our problems are just more complex than that. Though these verses may be simple, they are not simplistic. They are grounded in God’s unchanging character and nature, which means they are very needful for us today.
We know we’re sinners who fall short of God’s glory, and we know that Jesus died to save us from our sin, but somewhere along the way, we’ve failed to embrace what that means for our outlook on life. To be a Christian means to be adopted by God as His child—to have access to His not-worldly love, power, strength, and peace.
If we can come to embrace and trust God’s promise in Philippians 4:6-7, it will revolutionize our life.
Many of us live huge chunks of our lives trying not to worry but worry anyway. We tell God what we need, and doubt whether He will provide. We believe He exists, but we’re often not convinced He loves us enough to really help us. We hold on to only certain bits and pieces of the truth, leaving us stuck in a world of anxiety where it’s tempting to believe that failure, uncertainty, and worrying is all there is in life.
Many things can cause anxiety—health, the holidays, unexpected hardships, current events—and our reasons for worrying are often multi-faced and complex. Add to that the fact that most people in the world see life without any real purpose, believing that they live in a universe that has no rhyme, reason, or God – A lonely, frightening place to be.
The unbelieving world recognizes that anxiety is rampant, and a lot of well-meaning psychologists, doctors, therapists, and counselors are trying to help stem the tide. It’s not hard to find advice about how to cope with anxiety. One article stated that: “Our goal shouldn’t be to dismiss anxiety entirely—just to make it a healthy, manageable part of our lives.”
We are left with the seemingly reasonable idea that the best we can do is manage our anxiety and keep it from overwhelming us. But if we belong to Christ, is that enough? Are we satisfied with that answer?
Because God offers us a way to eliminate anxiety, as impossible as that may sound. We can ask Him to open our hearts and minds to the truth that He is enough to help us face whatever problems we are facing now.
God is seeking to purify us, to refine us like gold, to transform us into His image. That’s an astonishing goal, and it seems even more astonishing that a Christlike character is developed in us only as we pass through life’s crucibles.