GodSprings - March 31, 2016

Am I Self Reliant or God Reliant?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

A family had put their Grandma on her first plane flight, but she hadn’t been very confident about the experience of leaving the ground on this contraption. When they met her at the airport on her return, one of the family members kidded her by asking, “Well, did the plane hold you up okay?” She grudgingly replied, “Well, yes,” and then quickly added, “But I never did put my full weight down on it!”

Many Christians are like that Grandma. The truth is, they’re being sustained completely by God, but they’re afraid to put their full weight down on Him. As a result, they’re plagued by anxiety and aren’t able to enjoy the flight.

Few of us are strangers to anxiety. It creeps in over big and little things, gnawing away at our insides. Someone graphically described anxiety as “a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained”.

Given the complexities of today’s demanding world, we will inevitably experience times when we are feeling stressed-out. But stress, left untreated, can severely impact our everyday life. Physically, stress can cause fatigue, headaches, upset stomach, and sleeplessness. Mentally, stress can lead to forgetfulness and trouble concentrating. Emotionally, stress can leave us depressed, worried, and filled with anxiety. But before stress wreaks havoc on our body and in our life, remember that the Bible tells us we can exchange our problems for peace, we can trade in our anxiety for assurance, and we can live permanently released from the weight of worry.

God wants us to avoid anxiety at all costs, so much so that we are commanded to be anxious for nothing. If you think you are entitled to stress out about life’s difficulties, think again. “Be anxious for nothing” means we are to be anxious for absolutely nothing! No exceptions, no exemptions, no excuses. We cannot avoid all of life’s difficulties, but we are never to become a victim of anxiety. Anxiety is a sign of distrust in God, and disrupts our communion with Him, leading us to settle when we should be submitting to God.

Stress can cause us to overreact and jump to conclusions instead of waiting for direction. Stress makes us focus on details and fail to see the big picture. And, stress can cause us to be self-reliant when we need to be God-reliant.

What, then, do we need to do to stop a little stress from turning into sin? We pray. Prayer is the path to the peace that God promises. We must remember that prayer is not designed for us to get what we want out of God; prayer is a way for God to get the selfishness out of us.  

Paul is not reducing all of life’s problems to a pocket-sized solution. He is not saying that a prayer a day keeps the problems away. What he is saying is that if stress is building, prayer must be lacking. Prayerlessness is a sign of faithlessness. Anxiety enters our heart when our trust in God leaves our minds. Anxiety grows when we allow our problems to become bigger in our eyes than God is in our lives.

Prayer helps us to refocus and refuel our faith, which results in a divine transfer of the peace of God into our lives. If you do not know how to start praying in stressful times, begin by thanking God. Even in difficult times, we have much to be thankful for.

The next time you feel the pressures of life mounting and stress building, remember: be anxious for nothing and pray about everything for only then will we be God reliant rather than self reliant.