Be Anxious at Nothing

The ESV translates Matthew 6:27

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to

his span of life?

The KJV brings it down to our level a little more brutally with

Which of you by taking

thought can add one cubit unto his stature.

Yet even though we in the church have probably heard this

verse dozens of times, I think I can safely say, a lot of us keep stretching. But the problem with plucking

this verse out, ripe for the parental pie we are baking, is that we forget about what else Scripture says

about anxiety, pointedly, with a command and a promise:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in

everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

— Philippians 4:6.

This command is preceded by more direction:

Let your reasonableness be known to

everyone. The Lord is at hand.

When we brush off anxiety as just something we’re prone to, or worse,

something we’ve embraced as part of our complex personality, we are not only defying the Lord, but we

are denying His sovereignty. Has it ever worked? Have we found ourselves sprouting up when our mind

wildly swings from one circumstance to another? Have we ever achieved, what I think we are all secretly

hoping we’ll achieve; that we will work ourselves into such a state that God will take pity on us and give

us what we want? How presumptuous of us to esteem ourselves the wielder of the cosmos, the Oz

behind the curtain manipulating the Almighty.

But. See how God is gracious to us? He doesn’t say no to

us like an authoritarian taking a vase from a child, he gives us something better, something more

suitable for His kids: “...prayer and supplication with thanksgiving...” And then He rewards us:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

— Philippians 4:7.

His peace doesn’t just appear in a reasonable amount, it surpasses understanding. God

takes the vase, puts it up high, and gives us a playroom and a treehouse and swing. That is a generous

Father.

Depending on your childhood, you either were the kid who climbed everything or the one who

was fluent in the dangers of climbing. I was the latter. I could write a book about every possible bad

outcome. Fear is my second language. While lying in a hospital bed waiting to be life-flighted out, my

brother called me and pinpointed what I was afraid of at that moment: not the life-threatening illness, it

was flying. If we were meant to fly, God would have given us wings right? But all this anxiety that

had furnished my house was a sin. It wasn’t a side-effect of an old injury, it was a denial of the Lord. It

always has been. Confessing our anxiety is not denying that we care. It’s not not buckling the baby into

the car seat. It is laying down the thing that is in fact not going to do a single thing in our favor, and

instead turning to a loving a gracious God “...who is able to do far more abundantly that all that we ask

or think, according to the power at work within us.” Good news for worry warts.

To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. — Ephesians 3:20- 21