Professional Worrying

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, 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 understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:5-8

We are society of professionals when it comes to the game of worrying. In fact it’s possible to worry us right into the hospital (which many people do). Whether it is our job, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, TV show or gas prices (or all of the above) we can, and do, worry about it.

There are a couple meanings, which I think would be beneficial to know about the word ‘anxious.’ It’s first and most simplistic definition is: “greatly worried,” however there is a second meaning which I believe is just as important and necessary of knowing as the first: “earnestly desirous; eager.”

We earnestly desire to see something besides God’s glory as true.

We are eager to look at small plights and see them as more dangerous than our sin.

This, in my opinion, describes our sin life to a T.

Rather than being satisfied by the Controller of the Universe (The Creator and Destroyer of everything) we’d like to live in the fantasy of faux control. Eagerly thinking us the captain of our own demise, the leader of our own life, the champion of whatever cause we deem worthy – but this is a far cry from belief and faith.

“… In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In Jesus we are hidden and safe, we are guarded from a pitiful and unreasonable worry (it’d be safe to call worry ‘stupid’). It is the reason our salvation is described as a helmet and our righteousness as a breastplate in Ephesians 6, Jesus is our salvation and as such is capable of protecting our minds, he is our righteousness and will guard our hearts.

Thus, we, you and I both, need and should and must eagerly desire to see our Savior as capable of seeing us through these hard times, these small worries.