A thought by Craig Groeschel, from his book, The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist (p. 149). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
Wow, if that is true then it is very serious. It really is!
Craig says, “When we live by faith, we believe that God has everything under control. But if we start to worry, how we live says the opposite. If we are worried about losing our jobs, we are essentially saying that our jobs are our providers. But isn’t God our provider? What if God has something else planned for us? And what if, as unpleasant as it may be to think about, the path to that ‘something else’ is through some pain? Will we still trust in God to provide during that time?
“Worry, in essence, is the sin of distrusting the promises and the power of God. It’s choosing to dwell on, to think about, the worst-case scenario. It’s faith in the bad things rather than faith in God. Second Timothy 1: 7 says, ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline’ (NLT). In this verse, you could also easily translate ‘fear and timidity’ as ‘anxiety, tension, and worry.’ Fear doesn’t come from God. It’s a tool the evil one uses to distract us from our true purpose here.”
He later says, “Philippians 4: 6 – 7 tells us, ‘Don’t worry about anything.’ And it doesn’t just tell us what not to do. It tells us what to do as well. ‘Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus’ (NLT). That makes it sound so easy, but if we do what’s wise, we can peacefully leave the rest to God.
“When we tell God what we’re worried about or what we need, we are giving our burden to him. We still have responsibility to do what we can, but doing what we can’t isn’t ours anymore. Anytime we try to take back God’s responsibilities onto our shoulders, we remind ourselves, Now that’s his problem. And we can breathe a sigh of relief. It’s part of that supernatural peace he promised (Phil. 4: 7).”
So, what is it in your life that is robbing you of your faith? Will you stop and confess that to God and let him have it and then thank him for all he has done? Will you?
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