My Anxiousness or God's Glory

 Anxiousness: Experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome

This topic of anxiousness has been an interesting one for me to unpack over these past couple of weeks. Seemingly in my readings it has been a reoccurring theme. I have never been one to be horribly nervous about a particular situation, but there have been times when I have not leaned on God like I should and that thought has been a rebuke to me. The book I have started to read is a simple walk through of the 23rd Psalm. It is probably one of the most well known passages of Scripture and the author of that book, Tony Evans, is clear to point out that there is not a single problem in life that the 23rd Psalm does not cover. It is relevant to all because we ought to handle every situation the same. Lets focus our attention on a big issue, anxiousness, and see how Psalm 23 can help us with it. 

Scripture is very clear about the problem of anxiousness. Jesus, is very clear in His teaching about anxiousness. What does He say? Simple, in Matthew 6:25 Jesus is speaking and says, "Do not be anxious about your life..." Seems pretty clean cut to me, right? He doesn't suggest that we not be anxious. He states, do not be anxious. He then lists a few things that people are worried about in life. Food, drink, and clothes. I am pretty sure we would all agree those things are pretty important. Yet, He says in all of these things, do not be anxious. Thankfully, having lived in a country were food is easy to come by; I've never really had to worry about it. The same applies for water and clothes. But, as the passage continues Jesus reminds us that the birds do not worry about the food for tomorrow. As He does often in His teachings, He relates big issues to smaller concepts in hopes that we can better understand them. 

Jesus convicts those listening, and now us reading, in saying that even birds do not worry about tomorrow. They simply go about the days activities just doing what needs to be done. In some ways not having a concept of tomorrow, such as birds, would nice. But, God did give us a concept of tomorrow. But along with that, He gave us a concept about Him and what He has to offer that is greater than tomorrow. But we will get to that later.

Jesus comforts us after convicting us with the analogy about birds in saying, “Are you not of more value than they?” The lilies of the field, the birds, the animals, everything non-human will die here on this earth – even the earth itself will burn. Yet, God still cares and provides everything needed. He states right here in this passage that we mean more to Him than all of these things! Yet still, we doubt, we worry, we're anxious. 

So why then do we worry? Why are we anxious? Pride. Yes, our old never dying foe – pride. Mahaney puts it this way:“Where there's worry, where there's anxiousness, pride is at the root of it. When I am experiencing anxiety, the root issue is that I'm trying to be self-sufficient. I'm acting independent of God.” You may say Nathan, how is me being in the “depths of despair”, as Anne of Green Gables would say it, an issue of pride? Mahaney addresses that – anxiety comes from trying to be self-sufficient, and being self-sufficient is being prideful. God has designed us in that we do not need just a little bit of Him but all of Him. Anything less than that is hard, stressful, and will cause anxiousness. 

 

So we know how prideful we can be as humans. We know how weak we are and how strong our God is to provide for us. (And how He wants to do so!) But I think we should stop and think about Psalm 23 once again especially verse 1, while thinking about anxiousness and pride: “The Lord is my Shepard; I shall not want.” Once again, Scripture is clear here, through David's writings, I shall not want. I tend to think of this as the imperative statement – I will not want. Why? David answers that, the Lord is my Shepard. That is the key to all of this! Jesus must be our Shepherd. We must realize our place in the relationship. We cannot see what tomorrow will hold, but our Shepherd can. We cannot deal with the elements of the world we live in, but our Shepherd can. And there will be times when we cannot feed ourselves, but our Shepherd can! If He is not our Shepard, if He is not guiding us: we will want. We will search for things to fill the void that only He can fill. When we are self-sufficient, we will want.

 

God, as any good Shepherd does, realizes that we will stray and search for our own way. So what does He do? David answers that within the same verse: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me by still waters.” God makes us lie down. He takes us to a point where we can do nothing but crumble and then He makes us lie down. Let's face it, who wants to lie down? (be humbled) Remember, we're sheep – we're stupid. So God, as our good shepherd, takes our lives into His hands and makes us obey. He makes us do what we should have done all along when trials arise – rest within His care. He knows He is what we need. We don't need Xanax, we don't need alcohol. We don't our friends or even family. We need Jesus. Are we quiet enough to realize that?

After God makes us lie down in green pastures, David says, and he chooses his words carefully, “He restores my soul...for His name sake”! Once again there is the big picture – God > me. This whole process is God's doing because He knows that from it He will be glorified. 

So that takes me to my final thought – is how you are handling a situation glorifying God or taking from His glory? How can you tell them apart within your own life? Simple, really. Who are you running to first? We all know God is a jealous God. How He works all His ways around that perfectly and without sin, I haven't the foggiest. But He does. God wants to give us the peace, and ultimately victory in a situation so that He receives the glory. Do we see each trial and difficulty that way? Or do we strive to fix the situation so we are not harmed or hurt? Are we spiritually mature enough to see that in our despair God can be glorified? 

There are a lot of questions that have been asked here. But I truly believe you must take a step back during a hard situation, and one will arise, and ask God for the mind set that would allow Him to receive the most glory. Oh how that would change our perspective! It can be applied to every situation: school, work, relationships, families, even strangers that you meet during the day. In everything God ought to receive the glory. However if we are anxious about the situation we have taken our vantage point off of God and placed it onto ourselves. That must be changed. When you begin to see that God is in all things, and all things are because of Him, your perspective changes. And that is such a beautiful thing. 

I encourage you all to do a study, or take some time to look up what a shepherd does. Think of yourself as sheep, and look that up as well, and God as your shepherd - your day to day life will change. I promise.