(By Lisa Peat)
My heart pounded, I was restless, and my thoughts were on a continual loop. The “what ifs” were so loud in my anxious, worried mind!
I wasn’t taking my thoughts captive; my thoughts had taken me captive (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Have you ever felt like that?
The dictionary defines anxiety as “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune, a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”
Psychology Today differentiates anxiety and worry. According to Psychology Today, “Worry tends to be more focused on thoughts in our heads, while anxiety is more visceral in that we feel it throughout our bodies.”
Not knowing how a situation is going to turn out can leave us worried and anxious. My heart goes out to anyone who is going through this. It’s so easy to read the verse “Cast your care upon Him,” but it’s another thing to actually do it (1 Peter 5:7). Sometimes we have to keep casting them upon Him because we have taken them back again.
My worries and what-ifs seemed bigger than God in those times. I focused on them more than I focused on Him. I was anchoring myself inward to all my jumbled-up feelings and thoughts and I wasn’t comprehending the true character of God.
Deceit likes to wrap around our mind and heart, clouding our thoughts and feelings.
We need God’s truth to hold us close, binding our hearts securely with His truth. In her Colossians study, Ruth Chou Simons writes, “Obeying the word begins with telling our feelings, frustrations, and fears what is true from the word of God.”
I am so thankful that God comes to me in grace and speaks His truth to me in Scripture. I have the choice to seek Him, believe Him, and trust Him.
Ramona Gratton shared a devotion with us at our Living Loved prayer time a while ago about the importance of remembering how God has worked, provided, and guided us in the past. “She said, that we will forget if we aren’t intentional, forget who God is and forget who we are in Christ.”
When we set our minds on our situation and our feelings, we lose sight of the greatness of God. We can even lose hope.
The psalmist was discouraged and so he turned his gaze beyond himself.
“Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you” (Psalm 42:5-6).
God invites us to bring our emotions and our feelings to him. Feelings are real and God is a safe place to bring our feelings. You can say, “This situation looks hopeless. You say you love me but I feel like you’re unloving in this situation.”
You are free to be open and honest with God, telling Him how you feel, just as the psalmist did. Then ask Him to show you the truth from His Word and to give you the grace to believe Him. By acknowledging your emotions and expressing them to God, your heart is enabled to receive the truth from Him.
God has promises for you:
When you feel that everything is out of control, God says:
“For in him all things were created…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).
“Jesus Christ has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:22).
You can bring those feelings to God and tell Him that things look like they are out of control but you are choosing to believe His word that He is in control of all things.
When you feel that God has abandoned you, God says:
“For the LORD will not reject his people” (Psalm 94:14).
You can express to God that you feel abandoned by Him, but remember that He has promised that He would never forsake you. Ask Him to help you see and feel His presence with you.
When you feel that God isn’t hearing your prayers, God says:
“The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Psalm 145:18).
When you feel God is unloving, God says:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
You can tell God that what is happening feels very unloving, but you know that His love for you led Jesus to the cross to die for you.
When you feel that you have no hope, God says:
“He makes everything work out according to his plan” (Ephesians 1:11).
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
You can bring your feelings of hopelessness to God and ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember that because of Jesus you have a secure and wonderful future.
Allowing ourselves to acknowledge and feel our emotions and then sharing with the Lord about these feelings helps us to better express to Him what we are experiencing. It is then that our hearts can take in the truth of His words, and not just our minds. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says:
[Most] blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river; and it shall not see and fear when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit.
Our future is secure, our King is victorious, His love has no end, and when our hope is secure in Jesus, we flourish.
I learned that I had the choice to trust God with my future, seek His peace in my storm, and anchor my thoughts to His truth. I learned that He is faithful. It’s not easy to let go of our anxious thoughts and entrust them to God, but if He was willing to rescue us from a lost eternity, He will be faithful to work all things out for our good and His glory and to see us safely home.
What promises from God do you need to write out and rehearse to yourself? He is the source of our true hope and peace.
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