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Worry Less Trust More

Worry Less Trust More

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Worry and anxiety are pretty much the same. Spiritually speaking, they both are rooted in fear which is essentially an inability to trust God no matter what.

Life brings many situations that challenge our ability to trust God. What can you do to worry less and trust more?

Worry Less By Focusing On The Present Moment

When you worry, you are looking too far ahead into the future. All of us would like to know the future. But it can interfere with your faith. If you could only have one or the other, God would always prefer you maintain your faith (your trust) in Him instead of knowing anything about the future.

How far into the future is too far to be looking? For some people or in some situations looking 100 years might be too far. But others can stir up anxiety even by looking 100 seconds. Where you focus is more important than how far ahead you look. If you try to find security somewhere out into the future, you will never find it because you will miss that God is with you in the present.

If you want to worry less, then reduce how far you are looking ahead until you reclaim a sense of peace. Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow (the future). Each day (the present) has enough to occupy you. If even the events of later in the day concern you, focus on the present moment. At this very second, there’s not a whole lot to be concerned about. Take one day (one moment, one second) at a time.

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:27,34 NIV

If you find yourself saying, “yes, but…” about something that’s going to be happening or needs to happen, then you’ve already shifted your focus away from the present and onto a future moment. If you want to experience peace instead of stress, stop and recenter yourself back to the present.

Worry Less By Surrendering All Outcomes to God

You might be having an awesome day and find it easy to trust God. You might be having a horrible day, month, or year but God would have you trust Him the same. Nothing should come between you and God. Bad luck? Nope. Evil? Nope. Disease? Nope. Your health? Nope. Your very life? Nope. See Romans 8:31-39 for more on this.

It’s easy to value your life more than God. If you suffer a serious illness, your very existence is threatened. Or is it? It really depends upon your perspective. As a believer, you’re going to live forever. Do you allow God to determine how long you will live in this life? Or are you wringing your hands trying to figure out how to squeeze another hour out of it?

It’s easy to care about what happens in this life because it’s all we know. Or is it? As a believer, you have the Holy Spirit. So you have a taste of heaven today. Right now you can sense the goodness of heavenly living.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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.

Philippians 4:6-7 NIV

Do what is reasonable for each day to move your life forward. Leave the rest up to God (by praying and letting it go). If you find yourself panicking because of one thing or another, stop trying to be God: reduce what is on your plate. You weren’t meant to save the world. God sent Jesus for that!

Read more about trusting God.
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Experiencing God

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Experiencing God Meeting Your Needs

God made us to have needs. How do you respond when God appears out of reach? It cuts to the core. It’s easy to respond negatively. What’s really going on here?

The Fox and the Grapes

A famished fox saw a cluster of ripe grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: “The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.”

Wanting Something But Cannot Get It

Has this ever happened to you? You want something, but you cannot get it, and so you despise it? It is easy to despise what you cannot get. Then there is cognitive dissonance – wanting something, but not wanting it. What is cognitive dissonance? It’s a tension. When we are frustrated it is tempting to take an easy way out. It is the place where you reach where you hold seemingly contradictory thoughts at the same time. It is a place of confusion – uncertainty. When you find yourself frozen in your tracks and unable to make a decision, you might be experiencing C.D. Why else would you feel that way? That’s got to be tough – to want something so badly, but realize it’s beyond your grasp. The easy way out is to pretend you never needed in the first place.

More than Grapes

This applies to dating, and a whole lot of other things too. It applies to our hopes and dreams. It applies to our efforts. It applies to our self-worth. How? When we want something, but cannot attain it, it is certainly frustrating! Frustration combined with some unhealthy thinking leads to turning the frustration inward – taking it out on yourself. And wah-la — you are not just despising what you cannot get, you are despising yourself because you cannot get what you want. “I guess I didn’t deserve that anyway” or “I guess God doesn’t want me to have that” or “That must have been a bad thing for me because God isn’t allowing me to have it” “The grapes are sour anyway – I know it”.

Alternatives to Sour Grapes

Are there alternatives? You can get a ladder. Get some help! Are the grapes worth getting or not? Is the land flowing with milk and honey worth it or not? Or “is the land full of giants?” The land is spoiled. Unattainable. God won’t be with us. He doesn’t want the best for us. We are like grasshoppers. We can’t do it. I didn’t want it anyway. I am not worthy of such good grapes. I’ll take the sure bet – what I can achieve on my own.

What else can you do? You can look for lower hanging grapes. The grapes aren’t sour, they are presently out of reach. You can get them eventually. Don’t give up. Be patient. Be persistant. Be determined. Buy time. Don’t take your eye off the prize.

Reflections

Ask yourself – how does the fox feel about himself when he cannot get he grapes? Can he feel very good if he “curses” the grapes? What are the grapes in your life? Would you like some help to reach your grapes? I love helping people reach their grapes through focused determination and insights that help them see themselves as God sees them, and help people see God as he really is – a grape provider. Or, as we are sheep, God is a grass provider.

Resources

Numbers 13:32-33

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.

Read on Bible Gateway

Psalm 23:1

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

Read on Bible Gateway

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer’s remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

Read more on wikipedia

Why A Cult Becomes Attractive

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Allison Mack, a former Smallville actress, has been in the news recently for her alleged participation in a sex cult. She led other women to participate in physical mutilation, starvation, and sex acts.

How could someone end up convinced this is okay?

What is a Cult?

A cult is different from a religious movement such as a Christian church in one very important way. A cult has an underlying, intentional mission to exploit its membership for its own selfish gain. The leadership might be the only ones who benefit and the only ones aware of the full extent of the cult’s destructive agenda.

A healthy church, while never perfect, has an explicit mission to help, nurture, and strengthen its membership. God wants us to be committed to Him and His church but He never coerces us against our will.

A cult usually has three defining characteristics:

  • Members are required to maintain an unquestioning commitment to the cult and its leadership.
  • Members tolerate exploitative manipulation (whether they see it as such or not).
  • Members harm other members and anyone outside the cult they can influence.

See International Cultic Studies Association or More About Cults for more details.

What Kind of Person is Attracted to a Cult?

To be attracted to a cult, a person must have a deep unmet need. Since this describes most if not all people, the person must also lack an absolute worldview and suffer from low self-worth. By absolute worldview, I mean a solid understanding of what life is all about, based on fact, not fiction.

Other factors leading to vulnerability to joining a cult include:

  • Having a strong need to belong
  • A desire for meaning and to make a difference
  • Lacking boundaries – an inability to define oneself
  • Lacking confidence – an inability to discern and confront questionable behavior
  • Lacking independence – an inability to think for oneself and make one’s own decisions
  • Acting with blind trust – a willingness to give up one’s identity and follow another’s
  • Dissatisfaction with how life is going

Notice that many of the factors are good and normal. An empty person looking for an answer will be drawn to a cult because a cult has answers. A naive, desperate, and/or gullible person will not catch that the answers are evil; instead, they will see only superficial good intentions. Having an answer to the meaning of life is a core need. Without meaning, you’re extremely vulnerable to signing up for the first movement that comes your way.

The Perfect Protection Against a Cult

If you won’t stand for something good, you might end up following something evil. Invest your best effort to develop a confident identity which includes an absolute worldview. Knowing your worldview and identity keeps you safe. A worldview can’t be what you hope is true; it must contain some elements of what is actually true.

Life is demanding. To meet the demand, you must come to a greater knowledge of who you are. In particular, you must understand who God made you to be.

Don’t fall into the same trap as Allison Mack. Popularity and fame are poor substitutes for meaning and identity. You can’t have meaning without knowing your identity. Learn how to develop a Confident Identity.

All Things New

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A traumatic event is not easily forgotten. As you begin this new year, what is one thing you’d like to forget?

If you’re in a car accident, your car doesn’t fix itself. If your tooth develops a cavity, the decay needs to be removed. When something breaks, you must decide what to do with it. Can it be restored? Is there hope, or are you better off cutting your losses?

If nothing will ever change, then hope will be impossible. Then all that remains is suffering.

God introduces the needed change.

I am creating something new. There it is! Do you see it?

I have put roads in deserts, streams in thirsty lands.

Isaiah 43:19 CEV

Because God is making us anew, hope is inevitable. You can change. You don’t have to remain stuck and hopeless. God is rehabilitating you. God wants you to feel hopeful.

Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CEV

Forget what happened long ago! Don’t think about the past.

Isaiah 43:18 CEV

The more you can leave behind your past, the better you will be. “Leave behind” is a loaded phrase. It takes significant emotional work to leave behind difficult experiences (memories).

Therefore, to move forward, you first need to move backward. If your carpet is dirty and worn, you need to rip it out before you can install new carpet.

Grieving is the work of leaving behind. Once that raggedy carpet is gone, you can forget about it. But you don’t want to completely forget about it, otherwise, you’ll be more likely to repeat an accident (like spilling grape juice).

Grieving allows you to remember the lesson, but forget about the discomfort and shame. Forget about it. Don’t worry about it. You are free. Once you are free, you are open to all that God has for you.

What is one new thing you want God to do in your life this year?

How To Know When To Say No

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You might be more of a people pleaser than you realize. When you are presented with a decision, how often do you discount your opinion with something like, “I can go either way” or “It doesn’t matter to me; you pick”? Or, maybe you disregard your opinion with a “Yes” without considering what you want.

Certainly, there will be times when you are indifferent. Even during these times, it’s nearly always a good idea to know what you want, even if you give up what you want for someone else.

A quick response of indifference might involve the least amount of effort, but it can cost you significantly more later on. Instead, what if you invested the time to know what you want?

The less you know yourself, the harder it is to give a clear, direct answer to even a simple question. When you know yourself well, your answer will be second nature.

You might be wondering, “How do I get to know myself?” There are two main approaches to strengthening your self-image. You can remain reactive or go proactive.

  1. In reactive mode, you stumble through life and only give consideration to your ways when it becomes absolutely required of you (if ever).
  2. In proactive mode, you consider your ways every chance you get. You explore your past and use what you learn to better your future. You take advantage of the fact that God gives you truth about life, including details about who you are.

A step in-between the two modes is trial and error. You essentially try something blindly. Then perhaps as an afterthought, you evaluate the outcome. It’s not completely reactive or proactive.

The superior approach is having an awareness of who you are. Then during any given moment, you can proactively choose how to act based on what you know about yourself. God wants you to live a self-examined life (see Haggai 1).

Essential to every approach is what you do with your experiences. God gives you a process to discover your identity (who you are as defined by God). The goal is to increase the awareness of your identity so that decisions become easier over time.

If you have trouble people-pleasing or making good decisions, that’s usually because you don’t know yourself well enough. Learning who you are can occur “on accident,” but knowing yourself will take much longer that way.

Instead, take the time to evaluate your experiences and weed out the lies that are growing in the garden of your self-image. With the clutter of lies cleared away, you’ll know more clearly whether you want to say yes or no.

For example: if you don’t know who you are very well, then you might end up with an over-booked schedule. You’ll wonder why you are tired and irritable. If you continue to ignore your God-given identity, you’ll assume you are doing what God wants you to be doing because you are serving others.

In contrast, with healthy boundaries that come from a healthy identity, you’ll be confident about where to draw the line. You can say yes to some activities and no to others without feeling guilty or overwhelmed.

Some things God requires of you. You should feel motivated to do right and not wrong. But actually, most things are up to you. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). You can decide to go for a walk or stay home. You can decide to visit a friend or be by yourself. For these decisions, you must trust that God gives you enough intelligence to choose.

You can know what to choose by determining what level of self-care you need at any given moment. Then weigh that against the needs of others around you.

You might be surprised at your preferences when you discover them, but they are never a surprise to God. God knows what you will choose before you choose it. Trust that God gave you a built-in preference system–that’s your identity.

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The Best Way To Receive Love

The Best Way To Receive Love

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Love is a two-way street. Both the person offering love and the person receiving love must be willing participants.

What happens if you pour water into a cup with holes and take a drink? You’ll probably end up with more water on the outside of your body than on the inside. If your goal is to cool off, a cup with holes is okay. But if you’re thirsty, such a cup doesn’t work well.

Having a negative self-worth is like having holes in your cup. God can pour all of His love into you, but if you ignore, reject, or lack the ability to hold onto it, you won’t feel love for very long.

Everybody has holes in their cup. That’s a consequence of living in a fallen world. Even with the holes, there is hope.

Jesus said we shouldn’t put new wine into old wineskins. Why did He say this?

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”

Mark 2:18-22 NIV

Jesus is teaching about compatibility. Sometimes old ways of living are not compatible with new ways. The new wine needs to breathe, so it needs a wineskin that can expand. Old wineskins are less flexible than new ones. Your old way of living, your flesh, is not compatible with your new way of living in the Spirit.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Galatians 5:16-17 ESV

The old ways lead to death, but the new ways lead to life.

Receive Love With A New Heart

God gives a new heart to all believers.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

A heart of stone cannot receive God’s love. There’s no way to grow spiritually if you cannot receive His love. So God gives you a new heart that can receive His Spirit. With your new heart, you can enjoy spiritual growth.

Receive Love By Finding Leaks

Your new heart is all you need, but your old heart lives on in this life. If you can understand how your old heart is broken, you can minimize your losses.

The Spirit and flesh are at odds with each other. The lies you believe about yourself drain your self-worth. There’s a battle going on inside of you. Do you trust your old heart or your new heart?

The fleshly heart bears a wound. Nothing much can be done about it. The flesh wants to resist and complain. Everyone who feels miserable and hopeless is going to oppose God.

Fortunately for those of us with new hearts, we can choose to focus on the Spirit. We can experience peace and hope. Shift your focus today to your new heart. It’s as real as your old heart. It’s going to last forever while your flesh is already dying and actually already dead (Galatians 5:24). Hold open your new heart so you can catch God’s love. Allow this connection with God to be more important than the messages you receive from your old heart.

If you struggle with understanding how to do this, seek out a Christian counselor or other trusted person to help you.

Read more about God’s love for you.
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