“When I worry, I’m really telling God I don’t need His help.” Pastor James Sunnock
I love how when God wants me to learn something, He shows it to me in multiple ways through various avenues. I’d talked previously about what I’m really saying to God when I call myself a failure. God took that lesson for me one step further in church yesterday and revealed what I’m really saying when I worry…and I didn’t like it.
Our pastor continued his series on “Anything But Average” yesterday by describing how when I worry, I’m really telling God that I’m better than He is and I don’t need His help. I either act out of pride thinking I can do a better job or consider myself better than Him which is really saying, “I’m a god”. Those were some harsh words as I was in the process of reprograming my thinking from, “I’m a failure” to “I’m not perfect and God loves me anyway”…and here I was failing God one more time by worrying.
However, our pastor is correct. God instructs us in the Bible so many times NOT to worry so it must be an important command that He wants us to follow. It also must be something He realizes we will struggle with a lot! You see, one of the areas I’d been struggling with during our “exciting adventure” this year was exactly this: Why, when I trusted God and continued to give Him the problem, was I still trying to take back control in little ways? Looking for replacement income when He started preparing me back in January 2014 for the BEST job or spinning my wheels when I didn’t hear Him talking instead of continuing to get quiet and keep on with the tasks He’d already assigned to me. I felt in my spirit that God was calling me away from my former job into a new career path and it was exciting, but scary because the income lapsed during the transition. Instead of trusting completely that He had this covered, I tried to make things happen in the form of a transitional income, or questioned if the path I was on was truly the right one…instead of resting in His peace and letting Him fight for me.
When our pastor spoke about how “worry” is our default button and we must retrain the brain for God’s peace, I thought, “Wow – he gets me.” Throughout our adventure, I couldn’t understand why I would have peace, then lose it, then have it again, then lose it. I would give God everything, learn more about trust, and then start spinning my wheels and end up a basket case because I think I have to “do something, make something happen” or I’m not obeying.
Then he continued by saying when we choose to worry, we are in essence telling God we want control. I didn’t think I wanted control, but if I didn’t, why would I keep taking it back? If I didn’t think I could do a better job or God wasn’t doing it right, would I keep “worrying” about it, working hard to find answers that just aren’t ready to be found? When I took an honest look at myself, that is what I was telling my Father…and I didn’t like it. I didn’t think I could do a better job, but I was feeling outward pressure that I had to make things happen despite the fact God had told me to “wait.” “I heard wait, but for how long, Lord? Have you forgotten about me down here? Maybe we got disconnected somehow and I need to fix the line.” If I’m not obeying God…then I’m disobeying, not matter how I want to dress it up. That reality stung!
But then I think our pastor must have seen the tears streaming down my face when I finally got that truth, because he took compassion on those of us plagued with worry and prayed the most compassionate prayer, helping us to ask for forgiveness for our worry and disobedience, and asking God to fill us with peace.
I realized that I would need to actively choose peace every time I started to worry…maybe once a day or maybe several times a day or maybe every hour for a while until it became my new default button. Come back next time and I will share how that truth spoke an added blessing to me during our “exciting adventure.”
© Cheri Swalwell 2015