102 - Our Anxious Heart

Philippians 4:6-7 NASB

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 5:6 NASB

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

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At times and to varying degrees, we all feel anxious, which can challenge our faith in God and His abiding care. We may feel alone in our anxieties and that might feel a lot like God has abandoned us, but He hasn't. Far from Him being absent from us He acknowledges us. In our weaknesses and our sometimes short-sighted faith He calls us to trust in Him. He asks us to cast all our anxieties on Him, to bring our requests to Him, because He is the one actively caring for us.

By asking to take our anxious thoughts and requests from us He makes it clear that it is He who we need to trust in with all our heart. To let Him hold what we don't see, the unknown, our anxious understanding causing our hearts to feel distress. Our anxiety can be a gentle and often not so gentle reminder that it is not in us to piece it all together in order to calm our inner turmoil. Rather, it is for us to put our confidence in Him, to let go and trust Him to care for us.

With God all things are possible and even in the darkness of our anxiety we can be brought to a place where even though we don't see what is ahead we move closer to trusting Him. Trust and faith are not about seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Their essence is that there doesn't need to be a light, only a recognition and acknowledgment that God has us within His hands and is carrying us through. And in this, the anxiousness of our hearts begin to ease. We move closer to letting go of what we don't see into the hands of an all-seeing Father who loves us.

Our anxiety begins to lighten as we allow our mind to renew with what is, not with what is not. We focus our mind on the things from above not on what is of this world. We dwell on what is right, and true. God has brought us into His light, what is so true about us according to our new lives in Christ. We no longer see ourselves from a worldly standpoint, from a worldly point of view, for we are a new creation, the old is gone. We release what makes us anxious because it does not define us, it is not our new and true identity.

This new identity and our new position in Christ have raised us above the temporal of this world, what often causes our hearts to be troubled. God has given us new life so that we see ourselves and life anew. We are not alone and so we don't approach life as if we are alone. God is working in and through us. Working all things out for the good because He loves us and has called us according to His good purpose.

We have a new life and purpose so that we set our eyes on something far higher than ourselves and what we may be experiencing. God the creator of the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them has brought us into His life, to experience what is new. Not the old which has passed, but what is fresh, bright, and clean, a completely new outlook.

Dealing with anxiety is not so much about striving to not have any more anxiety but is far more than that. It is about learning to let go, to be still, and to trust in God with all our heart. If we are to trust in God with all our heart, is there anything beyond the concept all our heart that we don't put into His hands? In Him we move and breathe and have our being, what is beyond God enveloping us that He is not a part of? He is our life, and in His hands are all things.

God is clearly seen in all He has made so that we need only look up to know that He is with us. He sustains our entirety, every moment of every day. His hands hold the universe and all things together; just as He holds us together, not only physically, but even more so, spiritually. His hand is at work in all of life, every facet of our existence. Every hair of our head is numbered. If His eye is on every sparrow, how much more must He care for us, being intricately involved in every detail of our lives?

Is it possible that we let go just a little bit of our anxiety today and put it into His hands? This is His request and will for us. What He has prepared for us, accomplished through Christ, this is our inheritance, what we have to look forward to. The plans He has for us to experience. All the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms He has given us to enjoy, to be filled by them.

No matter where we think we are, we are completely new and in a completely new place. Seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, held close, hidden, protected, and guarded. He has prepared such a life as this, unfathomable, to take part in as His fellow workers. What He has given us transcends all. We can alter our perspective because reality, our reality, has been altered into something far greater than we could ever have imagined, all by the hands of our eternal Father through His Son Jesus Christ.