How do we understand our own dependence? Christians would say that we are dependent upon the Lord. What does that mean? How does dependence upon God help us?
I’d like to propose today how ‘worry’ can be our way to a deeper understanding of our dependence upon God, for how we live our lives moment by moment for and before God.
Matthew 6:9-15 is the Lord’s Prayer. In it Jesus lays out for us a construct on how to pray. It is a prayer of declaration and dependence. We declare the worth of God and then pledge our dependence upon him. We depend upon him to provide his will for us, our daily needs, spiritual protection and the means for relating to him and others (a forgiving heart).
Each of these ‘dependencies’ are also a means for worry. CJ Mahaney (who may have been quoting Ed Welch) says our fears, our worries, our anxieties (all the same thing) are not the cause of our worries but the occasion for it.Mahaney also reports that in Welch’s book Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest he calls worry a ‘stealth sin’. We don’t necessarily mean to worry it just overcomes us.
Worry is the opportunity to labor in, if you will, the sweet training that Jesus gives us in Matthew 6:16-34. He provides his construct of dependence upon him and then gives us 5 ways to train our minds to depend upon him and which he sums up in Matthew 6:33:
“But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”
Now if you were fearing, worrying, anxious – I’ll just call it worry – and I quoted you this verse and said, “There (maybe smacked ya in the forehead) and said stop it and get on with your life.” That would not be very helpful. In fact, if I were you I’d smack me back.
But if we start with the Our Father we see that Jesus knows we are going to struggle with these things – his will, our needs, the enemy, relationships. He knows this so he gives us instruction on how to set our minds on him (think: Colossians 3).
Here are 5 ways that Jesus teaches us to change our thinking regarding things we worry about. Notice that Jesus doesn’t deal with the occasion of worry, but the heart behind it. This is why people walk away from the counseling table: they want magic words for them to be ‘fixed’ when what they need, as far as you and I can see in the Scriptures, is to labor over and learn how to change their hearts. This is what God calls us to do because we have the Holy Spirit within us! We need to labor at it with Him.
5 Ways Jesus teaches us to change our thinking regarding worry:
1) Matthew 6:16-18: Be completely dependent upon Jesus for the good pleasure of your heart. Do not depend on the praise of men for anything. Fasting is a great way to begin this training. Labor.
2) Matthew 6:19-20: Get your Scriptures out and learn why God is better than anything you could ever want on earth. Labor.
3) Matthew 6:22-23: How you perceive the world better be with this view: Me -> (looking at) God (then my) -> circumstances (and then) -> world. AND NOT: Me -> (looking at my) circumstances -> (and then) God -> (and then) world. It won’t work. You will be (or are) a complainer, angry, bitter, a worrier… When we perceive the world around us with a black heart we’ll not get out of that rut. Labor.
4) Matthew 6:24 Now Jesus is taking a breath, emphasizing: If you don’t think and do life in the 3 ways above it will be very difficult for you as a Christian. You will be torn. You’re gonna be a worrier and you’re gonna be angry and discontent and bitter. You’ll be exhausted. You won’t sleep – you’ll be trying to serve the Lord before men and then staying up all night serving the master of worry. (I speak like I know what I’m talking about…). You’re acting like a hypocrite and the Lord knows it. Labor.
Finally
5) Matthew 6:25-32: Jesus graciously, mercifully, describes his deep, deep love for us. He mashes all the above ideas together in a beautiful emphasis on the love he has for you right this very moment. See he actually cares that you worry. In fact, James 1 teaches us that he brings trials into our lives for just that reason – that we might see our hearts. Then we look at his love and we’re like: whaaaaat? (Laboring through his Word and not some Christian book although many are helpful but – Labor.) How in the world could I worry about this when God’s sovereign hand is caring for birds and flowers and whatnot?
Then he reminds us again: “Seek My kingdom. You were made for it! Every time you overcome, my Spirit in you rejoices and I am glorified.” Isn’t that what we want? Doesn’t that make you want to labor to stop worrying?
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-29
Christian woman, Jesus loves you, worrying heart and all and he has something so much better.