Tag Archives: worry

The desires of your heart

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Do you find yourself pondering how “unfair” life is or growing tired of waiting for answers? Psalm 37 is a good read. It contrasts the ways of “evil” with those of “goodness.” And it speaks about the fulfillment of your greatest desires:

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (V 4)

 

What is it you most want? What does your heart really long for? Can these really be yours to enjoy? What’s “the catch?”

 

God does indeed offer us the desires of our heart WHEN:
We delight in him.
We commit our way to him.
We trust in him.
We wait patiently for him.
We stop worrying and fretting.
(Psalm 37:1-8)

 

We know what it means to delight in things. There’s that sense of pride of ownership and accomplishment when we attain something we’ve longed for. There’s the joy of beholding and enjoying the fruits of our labors. There’s the sense of strength and satisfaction that all is well when we are safe, comfortable, and surrounded by friends.

 

Can your delight in the Lord compete with all this? Could, would, and do you delight in the Lord in the absence of all this? When the total of all you’ve lost seems to outweigh all that remains, does your delight in the Lord shift the balance to the delight in his goodness?

 

Delighting in the Lord comes from knowing for sure in whom we have believed and being fully persuaded that he will keep that which we’ve committed to him until the last day (2 Timothy 2:12). We always obey what we’re fully persuaded to believe. If we don’t follow the Lord, it’s because we aren’t fully persuaded it’s worth the cost or the effort. If we do follow him, it’s because we know that all the suffering, loss, sorrow, and hardship is worth it in the end; that his promises are both true and fulfilling. Who can’t commit to such a promise?

 

Delighting in the Lord comes from trusting in him, confident he will accomplish what he desires in us, that he will complete what he has begun. Maybe it’s hard for you to trust God when there are so many unanswered prayers. But trusting comes from being still before our great God and waiting patiently for him to reveal his plan and his blessings. We can’t delight in the Lord when we worry and fret about our circumstances because worry is the opposite of trust. Worry leads to regret and regret feeds bitterness; bitterness leads to anger and anger to wrath and all kinds of evil. And none of this leads to peace.

 

Isn’t peace the greatest desire of your heart? Peace with yourself. Peace with others. Peace from your struggle to be well. Peace to enjoy life. Peace to understand and fulfill your purpose in life. Peace with God, the fulfillment of our deepest desire, to know him more and to fully enjoy his presence.

 

Delight today in God’s generous love, his amazing grace, his tender mercy, his awesome power, his faithful promise, his perfect plan, his patience in long suffering, his lasting goodness, his endless joy, his offer to bring you into his family, and his eternal inheritance. Grow your delight in the Lord by committing, by trusting, by being quiet before him, by waiting patiently, by giving thanks often, and by resting in his presence.

 

And in your moments of meekness and delight, enjoy great peace from all your struggles!

 

Seduced by righteous eating

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I love to eat. Marcia and I are mindful of maintaining a healthy diet (as long as it includes some chocolate!). Marcia prefers to make most meals from scratch so we don’t eat much processed food. We also don’t consume much ‘organic’ foods except what we grow. We just like the taste and nutrition of natural foods. Considering the numerous recalls of tainted food, the growing prevalence of GMOs, and the temptation of ‘super’ foods it would be easy to become over zealous about what we consume. We try not to be fanatic about it because we know:

 

It’s easy to be consumed by what we consume!

 

Dr. Steven Bratman shares a time when all he could think about was what he ate, always searching for special foods to fulfill his ‘perfect’ diet. He observes that “healthy eating can (lead people to be) at risk of a dangerous obsession with eating ‘proper’ food.” He says he found himself “seduced by righteous eating.”

 

Isn’t that a danger we all face, and not only with the food we eat but with anything we exaggerate to a higher focus than what it should have in our lives?! It could be the coffee we drink, the clothes we wear, the obsession with beauty and youth, even our consuming hobbies.

 

Diet, fitness, beauty have become ‘gods’ in our culture and we’re tempted to make our bodies their temple of worship.  I wonder, are we more willing to cleanse our bodies of physical toxins than we are to cleanse our soul of toxic thoughts and habits? We cross a blurred line when eating healthy foods leads us to disproportionate stress and consumes our whole life. It not only consumes us but negatively impacts our relationships with our family and friends. Ultimately what we focus on affects our mental and spiritual health.  We could say the same thing of the blurred line between healthy exercise and obsession with the god of fitness, the addictive hobby, the maddening compulsion to find a cure for everything that ails us.

 

In his book Health Food Junkies Dr. Bratman shares a quiz to help identify if even healthy eating has led to an eating disorder. I invite you to join me in reflecting on whatever consumes our minds and activities:

How much time do I spend worrying about my (fill in the blank) activity?

Do I feel guilty when I don’t focus on this?

How many hours a day do I spend thinking about it?

Do I find myself planning for tomorrow’s activity today?

Do I consider my activity a ‘virtuous‘ endeavor?

How does it affect the quality of my relationship with others?

Am I becoming more strict with my ‘rules‘?

What other ‘good things’ am I willing to sacrifice for this?

Does engaging in my activity elevate my self-esteem? Do I tend to look down on others who don’t?

Does my activity isolate me socially?

Does it feed my need for being ‘in control‘?

Does it drain my time, money, and energy for better things?

 

The parable of the talents illustrates that God cares about how we invest our time, money, and energies. Not every permissible thing is beneficial. All throughout scripture He warns us to focus on what lasts and what matters most. It’s not bad to be zealous about life. Just be careful that what you consume doesn’t end up consuming you.

 

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.”  – Romans 12:10-11

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Fretting is good…for repairing guitars

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If you repair guitars it could be helpful to know something about fretting. It is useful for producing quality tones on the instrument. But the kind of fretting the rest of us tend to do is not helpful for anything except creating ulcers and resentment. It’s called worry.

The Lord Almighty who created all the universe with His spoken command, the One who created everything out of nothing, the One who chose you before the foundations of the earth were laid…this same gracious, loving, holy, powerful, just, all-knowing, wise, sovereign and glorious ‘El Roi’ God sees you where you are. The question is do we trust a sovereign God? Or do we feel more comfortable trusting ourself?

If we trust God, we have nothing to worry about, do we? After all, He knows best and has the best interest of His children at heart. If he chooses suffering and hardship to bring us into that better plan it will be for our good. If we choose our own hardship, He promises to bring us through it if we turn to Him. We earthly parents do the same, however imperfectly. He promises He will never abandon us and that our pain, sorrow, and suffering will one day end and produce glory. If we really believe it, what is there to be anxious about?

But we still worry, don’t we? We don’t need to beat ourself up because a worrying thought comes across our mind. The question is, what do we do with it? Do we dismiss it and turn it quickly over to God or do we dwell on it? Do we determine its fate or does it determine ours? Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) I like the mental image of handcuffing that wrong thought and marching it into God’s courtroom. Let Him deal with it.

I admit, I have lots of questions. When will my leukemia be cured? What might cause it to take a turn for the worse? Will we get to carry on with plans to minister in South America? Will my finances hold out? How do I fulfill God’s will when I am so weak? I’m guessing you have lots of questions about your life too. Questions are great. They bring us to God.

But when questions turn and churn into worry, fear grows and interferes with trusting God. We start to think His way is too hard or start thinking OUR way is better than His. (Talk about irrational thinking!)

Jesus said repeatedly, don’t worry. Maybe we should just take Him at His Word. And when we start fretting about something, reaffirm our trust in the One who is sovereign, who has our best interest at heart. “I believe, Lord. Help me in my unbelief.”

Leave fretting to the guitar repairers.

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

Faith still climbs mountains

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True faith is a gift from God. It comes from His amazing grace and continual desire to draw close to His creation. But what we do with this gift determines a great deal about how our life will unfold.

We can ignore it and gradually, like an unwatered plant it will whither, grow dormant, or even die. We can nourish it with periodic church attendance, bible study, occasional prayer, positive thinking, and the likes. And we might find this faith a welcome friend, although perhaps not strong enough to whether the toughest of storms. Worse yet, sometimes we place our faith in unsustainable sources: untrustworthy friends, finances, health, science, politics, sometimes even family. My personal experience is that only the faith that continues to grow daily in the One True God offers real and lasting hope. Over time this faith becomes the most practical expression of daily living and speaks to all everyday problems and circumstances.

As I interact with the nurses here at the hospital, I can usually clue in to which days are more chaotic than others, which ones just pull them down. Today, in connecting with one such dear nurse, I reminded her of the true story when Jesus spoke and calmed a storm. I told her that He could do that for her now, and also that even if her storm continues, He can calm HER heart in the midst of the storm.

This is almost always our personal experience in our current cancer storm. The storm continues, but God calms our hearts. We have made consistent faith deposits in good times so we have an abundant account from which to draw upon now. Faith is also like a muscle you exercise regularly so that it is ready to bear the weight required of it.

But all this talk of rising above the storm, staring cancer in the face with strong resolution is not the talk of a “super-Christian”, far from it! Faith is simply lived out, imperfectly, day by day, and usually moment by moment.

Faith still needs to climb mountains, it still needs to go through the valleys.

Today, I find my mind thinking and talking to my body about this second round of chemo as my stomach starts to react negatively. Worry still tries to creep in. But worry is counterproductive. Essentially, worry is the prayer of the atheist. This quote I found today speaks good advice when we start to worry:

“Don’t waste your energy on worry.

Use your energy to BELIEVE.”

What do you choose to believe in so much that it guides your consistent and intentional thoughts and actions throughout the activities of your day? What faith growingly consumes your passion and fills you with purpose? May it be a faith that is completely trustworthy, a faith that will climb mountains.