Let's start in Matthew 6. Jesus is speaking: "I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? Oh, you of little faith! So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?
' or 'What shall we drink? ' or 'What shall we wear? ' But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. " And then in Philippians 4: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. " Jesus said very plainly, very repetitively: "Do not worry. " I'm of the opinion that if Jesus says not to do something, he has our best interests at heart.
He's not being meddlesome. He's not trying to limit us. He's concerned about our well-being, and we've missed something.
Something has eluded us. We have tolerated something in our lives, in our thoughts, in our emotions. We've tolerated something, allowed it to flourish, that in reality is destructive, that Jesus has said, "Don't do that.
" We are so twisted and tied up and melting down in our own worries and problems that we forget we have a Heavenly Father right there saying, "Do you want my help? " And we just have to say, "I want your help," and trust that he can do what he needs to do. Let him do the work that needs to be done.
Look, if you're counting on yourself to solve all of your problems, then of course you're worried and stressed out. It doesn't matter how strong, wise, or capable, how charismatic you are. It doesn't matter how much wealth or influence you have.
You are not designed to be able to take on everything and handle everything. You will have more problems come at you than what you are capable of handling. When you carry the responsibility of everything, then you have to do everything.
You have to find the solutions. You have to choose the right direction. You have to power through problems.
You have to plan for the future, make adjustments, and you have to do all of it at the speed of life. Yeah, you're stressed out. You're worried, of course.
But God does not want you to do it on your own. He wants you to recognize that he is there to lead you, to walk you through, to guide you through every step of the way. And here's the deal: He doesn't want to just give you every resource that you need to get through your problems; he wants to be what you need in every situation.
It's amazing the problems that are solved the moment that you decide to trust God in everything, because when you trust God, you don't have to try to figure anything out anymore. As you lean on him, then you take the pressure off of yourself because you don't have to try to figure stuff out. You don't have to try to change things that you've already tried a million times to change, and the more you try to change, the more frustrated it makes you.
Because you can just finally say, "Well, God, I'm trusting you with this. And if you can't change it, then I guess it doesn't need to be changed. " The only way you can learn to stop worrying and stop trying to figure things out, stop being jealous of what other people have, is—I just honestly think that in addition to studying the Word, I think that we just have to try it our way long enough to finally just get worn out enough to just say, "Okay, God, I surrender.
" You know the beginning, you know the end, and everything in between. You know every flaw that I have, every fault that I have; you know every weakness that I have, as well as my strengths. I surrender.
So many times I have just said, "God, I don't know what to do. God, I'm overwhelmed," or "God, I'm in over my head. " And you know, I've said this many times: "God, help, please.
" It doesn't have to be long; it doesn't have to be eloquent. I don't have to have the answers or the solutions; I just need to go to the one who does have the answers. Have you ever been on an emotional roller coaster?
I mean, you're just up, you're down, you're this way. And you know what God says? "I'll take care of that.
" You ever go to bed thinking about it? Wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it? In the morning you get up, you're thinking about it.
Man, it has captured your thinking. God says, "I'll take your emotion and your thinking through Christ Jesus. " 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.
" And what that means is that we take all of our problems and our worries and we choose to place them in God's hands and say, "I trust that you will handle the outcome. " Are you confident that you can take your problems and your worries and place them in God's hands, and that he can handle everything? Worry is the anticipation of the negative.
In fact, there's a relationship between faith and worry; it's inverse. Faith diminishes as worry flourishes, or as your faith flourishes, your worry will diminish. Worry is the negative expression of what faith in God is.
One of them would be: I don't want Jesus to ever look at me and. . .
"Use my name and 'person of little faith' in the same sentence? Do you? I want to be a man of faith.
Worry? Are you saying I don't think God can handle this? So I'm gonna pick it up, and I'm going to invest emotional energy, my thoughts, and my anxiety?
I'm not gonna change the outcome a bit. Jesus said you can't add one hour to your life. God can add years.
God has the best solution for all of our problems. He sees and knows everything. He sees the future.
He understands every angle of what is going on in your life right now. He understands how people are viewing it and perceiving it. He sees the best solution to your problems.
He's incredibly wise. When I worry, I am basically saying I am afraid that my life is not going to be the way that I want it to be. But when I trust that God has the best solution, I am saying, 'God, I believe that you have the best way for me,' even if it's not the path that I chose or that I came up with.
And we can trust that if we follow God and if we trust Him, He will give us every resource that we need every step of the way, and that at the end, He can turn that into something wonderful and beautiful. And let me tell you, if you have someone who loves you enough, who is strong enough, and who has the best solution, what do you have to worry about? See, the reason that worry exists so often is because we just think it's normal.
It's not normal; it's common, but it's not normal. It doesn't have to be in our lives, and it's robbing us of God. It's robbing us of our family.
It distracts me from God and people; it robs me of my joy, and it exists because I allow it to exist. Listen to what I'm saying: worry exists and anxiety exists because we allow it. We are in complete control of our lives.
God would never command us to do something that we don't have the ability to do. Worry is a choice, and trust is a choice. You can't do both at the same time.
You have to choose to put your trust in God. Put the full weight of your problems, your life, and your future into His hands and let Him carry it. Worry and anxiety mean the devil has implanted something in your life that's just sitting there, intimidating you.
And because of that, you can't focus on God and the people that you love, and that's the greatest problem with worry and anxiety: it robs you of your ability to worship and love the people that you cherish, so it's an enemy. The root of all fear, worry, and anxiety is an orphan spirit because orphans are on their own, and they have to take care of their own problems. The devil wants you to feel as though you're on your own and you have to solve your own problems.
You have the best Father in the universe. Stop grieving over the father you didn't have and start rejoicing that you have the best Father in the universe, and He loves helping you process anything in your life. Nothing is too small.
Nothing is too large. He just enjoys the ride. He just enjoys the relationship.
And as we're sitting here obsessing about something, what it means is we're wasting the relationship. He does see your problems, and He wants to help you. God's love for you is so immense, and that means that you can come to Him with anything and everything.
We don't have to lead lives that are defined by worry, anxiety, and fear. It doesn't mean those things won't come, and they may even come with justification. But Jesus said we don't have to worry about that.
He is my provider; He is my protector; He is my promoter. He is the person that I longed for in every relationship. He is the place that I look to to find home.
He is my professor to reveal beautiful new things to me. He is everything that I need and everything that I longed for when I go to Him. The key to peace is not being able to solve every problem.
The key to peace is resting in who God is. When we give God control, there's a beautiful promise that He will never leave or forsake you. Man, we can walk in that path, in that promise towards peace.
He doesn't want you to be overwhelmed with worry and problems. He wants you to be overwhelmed with His love for you. And you may be saying, 'Look, you don’t understand how many problems I have, how many issues, and how much I've gone through.
' Well, you know what? God says, 'No matter what you have, I want to take all of your problems, all of your worries, all of your failures, all of your sin, all of your brokenness. Give it to me because I can handle it,' and the truth is only I can handle it.
