Love and Trust

Probably one of the most quoted Bible verses, when it comes to worry and anxiety, is Philippians 4: 6-7.

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.

If you don't have that memorized I encourage you to. The Word of God is the sword of truth to dispatch the lies of the enemy.

Where do worries and anxieties come from?

One of the main sources is from the father of lies - the enemy of our soul.

His tactics have never changed. Just look at Genesis 3:1

Now the serpent was more crafty than

any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said,

‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

Did you know this is the very first question recorded in the Bible? Isn't that revealing...the serpent ASKS a question...so what exactly happens in our brains where we're asked a question?

Columbia Business School did some research.

"What color is your house? After reading that question, what were you thinking about? The obvious answer is the color of your house. Though this exercise may seem ordinary, it has profound implications. The question momentarily hijacked your thought process and focused it entirely on your house or apartment. You didn’t consciously tell your brain to think about that; it just did so automatically."

So when the serpent asked Eve, "Indeed, had God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'" Eve's brain was flooded with one subject: The banned tree. Crafty indeed.

Eve's mistake - and mine some days - is to answer the question instead of asking one back.

I wonder what would have happened if she asked the serpent, "Oh! Weren't you there when God gave us instructions?" Or, "What have you heard?" Or, "Have you seen all the amazing fruit growing in the trees we get to eat from?" Ah...we'll never know.

I get caught in the same trap when I question my worth, competence, and contribution. These are the frets of my inner life and natural consequences of childhood trauma, spiritual abuse and PTSD.

One of the best questions I can use as a rebuttal is:

"Who am I to God?"

One answer is found in Ephesians 1:3-4:

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing

in the heavenly places in Christ,

 just as He chose us in Him

before the foundation of the world,

that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

It's even more powerful when I personalize it and read it out loud:

Blessed be my God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed me with every spiritual blessing

in the heavenly places in Christ,

just as He chose me in Him

before the foundation of the world,

that I would be holy and blameless before Him.

Going back to Philippians 4 we see Paul's words are not empty platitudes or vague ideas. He offers a tried and true method to overcome the crafty questions: prayer and supplication with thanksgiving directed at God. And he promises an outcome: the peace of God guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

Note that it is God we look to - and our hearts and minds find peace in Christ Jesus. We do not have the answers! If we centre ourselves on ourselves we will fall.

Loving and trusting God is worked out as we turn to Him for the answers. Then they become the solvents that scrub away the doubts seeded in our souls by the enemy.

When questions arise that lead us into anxiety, worry, or doubt in the goodness and love of God, let's learn to ask ourselves questions - and then to answer them with the word of God.