Are You A Worrier?
Philippians 4:6, 7
“Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. 7 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)
Pastor’s Blog
Are you able to worry? This means you are able to focus your mind on a problem and chew on it, ruminate over it, continually roll over it in your mind. The bad news is that you can’t stop worrying by deciding not to worry. The good news is that if you let Him, God can slowly shape your worries into prayers.
The paraphrase (a non literal yet accurate “translation”) I chose above is a very beautiful rendering, I think, of what Paul was getting at in this letter to believers in Philippi, the first “church” ever in Europe. Here’s a translation of the same passage beginning a few verses earlier.
"4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7 (NIV)
Paul seems to think that over time, with intentionality, we can actually choose to grow a “glass half full” attitude toward life’s issues (“rejoice”). Paul wants us to know that God is at work beyond what we can see and he seems to think that we can increasingly learn to rest in that. Paul wants us to practice thanking God for His blessings and he seems to think that this will lead to deeper trust and deeper peace.
The next time worry is a big blockade to the flow of the Spirit in your life can you just take all the worry words that flood your mind and point them toward God, just give them to Him as your offering – kind of as a way to say, “God I’m inviting you into the drivers seat. Please accept me now as passenger.”
Pastor Jeff, thank you so much for this blog posting, especially when there is a lot of worry caused by everything from the economy to putting our children on the school buses. I have a couple of questions that I've been thinking about as a result of this post.
ReplyDelete1) Is the amount of worry we are feeling today demonic or is it a part of our sinful nature? I know that the devil tries to get a foothold in anything and everything he can. I think of two situations in the Bible. The first is when Eve was tempted by the serpent. Obviously it evil influence that caused her to question. But doesn't questioning in some circumstances lead to doubt and then doubt to worry?
2) Does Jesus get annoyed with us when we do worry and lack faith? I'm specifically reminded of Jesus and the demonized boy in Luke 9. Neither Jesus' apostles nor the boy's father had the faith in God to deal with the boy's possession. However, Jesus dealt with the problem in 10 seconds.
3) You say in your blog that all we need is to point our worry towards God and let him handle it. Does this get easier to do if we follow Paul's words in Romans 12:1-2 where we seek a renewal of the mind? If so, how do we work on that renewal?
Twice in my life I have had worries that just about consumed me. I took both issues immediately to the Lord in prayer, repeatedly ...sometime hourly. The first one, fifteen years ago, I shared with a few close friends and over time, we all prayed for guidance for me. My burden gradually lightened and my answer from every single person was to "wait." And two years later, the situation changed.
ReplyDeleteThe second, more recently, was more frantic and I found myself finally praying for the Lord to forgive me for not letting go of the worry after I had given it to Him. It seemed every waking thought was a prayer for His intervention. Every dream was a struggle to find an answer. Every conversation we had was my suggesting ways to solve the problem or apologizing for being so stubborn. When He did answer my prayers, He had changed the ground rules and made the situation so much better than I could ever have hoped for, once more reminding me that He is Lord and His ways are not my ways. I am still awed at His solution!