Saturday, November 5, 2011

A Thousand Lies

As a Christian, worry is the greatest contradiction in my life. I have been bought by the blood of Christ, my past is forgiven, and my future secured because of the work of Christ. I serve a sovereign God who controls all things, works all things for good, and cares about every detail of my life. Then why should I worry…about anything? And yet, I do! I worry about my future. I KNOW that God is good, has a divine plan for my life, and that He knows my desires for marriage and children. If something is His will for me, not even Satan himself can thwart God’s plan. But if I follow that anxiety back to its root, in reality I BELIEVE that man can somehow “mess up” God’s design. There is a contradiction between what I know and what I believe in. I am making God small and putting man in the position of ultimate power and authority. Or, I do not truly believe that God is good and that He cares for me. Either way, these false beliefs are truly unbiblical and idolatrous! Another pitfall in this area is that I am lifting a temporal, earthly relationship to a place in my heart where it does not belong. While marriage is a good and godly objective, it is not the relationship that I was ultimately created for. I was created for a relationship with the one true living God, and that is the only thing that will bring complete, lasting, eternal fulfillment.

It is true that “anxiety tells you a thousand lies”. Anxiety whispers that God cannot be trusted and leads me to believe things about God that are false. It is like viewing my world through a fun-house mirror where everything is skewed and out of proportion. I see and believe in a twisted reality. The only cure for this is for me to view worries through the lens of Scripture. When I see my world biblically, I perceive my circumstances as they really are, in proper proportion to God’s love, sovereignty, and grace. I have a choice. I can listen to the lies of anxiety or I can seek out and believe the true Word of God.

1 comment:

  1. That is JUST what I needed to read! I appreciated how you pointed out the root of our anxiety is that we believe somehow man can thwart God's plan, that is exactly it! I struggle with this a lot. And I also appreciated how you pointed to the remedy-> "The only cure for this is for me to view worries through the lens of Scripture. When I see my world biblically, I perceive my circumstances as they really are, in proper proportion to God’s love, sovereignty, and grace." I feel spurred on after reading this.

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