Anxiety and trust
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| "A winters view from a window" Photography by Joluise |
Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
Charles Spurgeon
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I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4
One of the hardest things is trusting the Lord. I was having this conversation with my mother (who is now 80) - she is struggling with this very thing - anxiety is taking over and she finds it hard to just TRUST. Why do we as humans find it so hard to do this - I think it is because we don't like loosing control and that is what trust means - loosing control and handing that control over to the Lord. And to make it more difficult, He does things we don't understand and that makes it even harder to trust. But we must, as Jerry Bridges says in his book "Trusting God", "We must learn to trust God when He doesn't tell us why (he does certain things), when we don't understand what He is doing".
My husband has been without a job since December 2011, this most certainly has been a lesson in trust. 99.9% of the time I am fine, I completely trust the Lord in what He is doing. However every so often (that .1%) I feel a little panic of "what if" then I reminded myself that there is nothing to be worried about and so far the Lord has not let us down. I remember when my husband told me that he would be taking a voluntary redundancy and I said "don't worry, everything will be fine" and I believed it as I knew the Lord would make everything fine. Perhaps not how I would do things, but in His way . . . which is always right . . . God never makes mistakes. And we should never question his way or ask for a justification or an explanation. But just trust. And that is what I plan to do this week, every day and every moment . . . there really isn't any other choice is there? Because worry, anxiety and fear won't achieve anything.
Maybe the difficulty in trust also has to do with submitting to the Lordship of Jesus, because we all like to be in charge or boss. Anxiety (worry) is a sin (Mat 6:34), and as such needs the same treatment as any other sin.
ReplyDeletemost Christians suffer from time to time with this, we are all human and none of us are perfect. But there are many encouraging verses to read to help overcome our worries.
DeleteHowever some anxieties are beyond the normal anxieties - particularly for those suffering from mental illness and even Christians can fall into this group and they don't always have any control over what they are doing.
nice post thanks for sharing..saw you thrue other follower looking for to visit more..blessings
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by :)
DeleteBlessing for the coming week
I have often wondered what was happening with your dh's job situation. Sorry to hear he doesn't have a job yet.
ReplyDeleteYes, anxiety is something we need to fight against, which is why there are so many scriptures to remind us to trust I think ;)
Good reminder Jo!
There is something in the pipeline, but it is taking a long time to happen and that is certainly a lesson in patience's as well. The longer it takes the more important it is to trust the Lord and remain in "good cheer".
Deletehave a lovely week
I'm sorry to read of this too. May the Lord undertake for you and your husband at this time. Trusting God was a book I gleaned a great deal from at a very stressful time in my life. I have just posted re God's ways not being our ways. Perhaps He has lessons for you too, my dear :-)
ReplyDeleteI am finding the book "Trusting God" to be excellent and finding plenty of useful information from - I need this sort of book right now!! I am sure God has lessons for me and one of them is patience's and dealing with uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteIt is so very easy to worry, to get upset, to be impatient. It really is a learning curve, this learning to trust and keep on trusting - I think it is probably a process that we have to work on throughout our entire lives.
ReplyDelete