Breathe

And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!  John 16:33

We all have so many things in common; regardless of the country we live in, our background, or our beliefs. We are all covered under the same stars at night and receive light from the sun every day. We share so much, like our ability to worry about our future. So often we feel alone in this world when it comes to facing our problems, as if they only happened to us, but make no mistake, we are all in this together.  “In this world we will have trouble” is a guarantee for this life, given in the honest and unaltered Word of God; just as the hopeful promise in the second part: “Take courage, for I have overcome the world.”

Bible verses like 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” are usually the ones we grow up memorizing at Sunday school, remaining dear to our hearts as adults. But what is anxiety, anyways? It is the result of our projection of how we should fix our future. 
So often we feel like the troubles and sorrows of life are frustrating the plans we have created for our own, so we have the need to fix them (at least in our minds). God’s plans for us are different, filled with peace and rest, with the ultimate purpose of benefiting us. Unfortunately, due to our lack of intimacy with Him, we don’t allow His ways to prosper in our lives, creating in us the irrational need of wanting to control everything.  Anxiety denies God’s sovereignty and makes us live in the most overlooked sin: pride.

Doctors say that anxiety is the invisible guest; no one sees it, but it stays with everyone. The problem with anxiety is not only that it serves no purpose, but it also causes us to alter our priorities. Yet the biggest issue is that it ignores that God cares for us, destroying our confidence in His provision. ‘To cast our anxieties on Him’ does not mean to take all of our troubles and sorrows in a worrying prayer day after day. It means quite the opposite if we read the context: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). 

Humility has nothing to do with undermining God’s creation and praying in distress for the lack we see in our future. To humble ourselves is to recognize our need for God and His ability to make exceedingly more than all we can ask, dream or imagine. Until we humble ourselves, we have no part in casting our anxieties on Him; because we must first understand how much He cares. The problem with anxiety has never been about fixing the future; rather about our hidden issue in the present, pride. Truth is, we can’t control everything in life. God does. He is perfectly capable of doing it and He wants to. 

If you’re anything like me, this should help you breathe better.