I am reading through a book entitled “A Praying Life” by Paul Miller for church on Sunday nights. In chapter 8 (“Bending Your Heart To Your Father”) Miller brings up the idea of anxiety as it relates to prayer. In the study guide for the class, it asks, “What is your natural response to chaos?” Let me give you the list I compiled as to my “natural” (unholy and unsanctified) response(s) to problems and anxiety:
- Freak Out!
- Scream!
- Stand in Awe that yet Another difficulty has arrived!
- Seek a solution to the problem.
- Realize that my solution is like throwing Jello at the wall to make it stick (which is utterly futile!)!
- Discover a “temporary patch” to the problem (it’s called “temporary” for a reason because it never stays or lasts).
- Wait on Pins and Needles for the “temporary patch” to fall off (in other words, for the problem to re-emerge or for some corollary problem, related to the main problem, to emerge).
- EVENTUALLY Cry out to God to Fix the problem!
- Realize that God isn’t Fixing the problem in the speed and time-period in which I’d like the problem solved!
- FINALLY Settle in and Accept the problem as a part of God’s Sovereign Will for my life.
I don’t know what you would list as your “natural” reaction to problems and/or anxiety, but you can at least partially relate to mine above. As you observe the list above, notice this: Almost NONE of it is very helpful! Almost NONE of it is very useful! Almost NOTHING on the aforementioned list really SOLVES any problem, nor does it really help the anxiety of the individual at all. What does “freaking out” do to help the issue? How can Screaming solve anything? Does anxiety decrease as the volume of the voice goes up? I think not.
If I’m being honest, I do not actually react exactly as I’ve listed above. Sometimes I may want to scream or freak out, but I refrain mostly because that is not helpful to anyone. I’ve gotten better at putting numbers 8-10 closer to the top of my list, but I cannot say that I always rely on God every single time an issue arises.
Anxiety, however, is the opposite of trusting God and prayer. I can either be anxious and trust myself, or I can pray and trust God. Those tend to be my two options (other than Freaking Out!). Miller, however, is helpful here. He gets to the root (maybe “a” root) of anxiety when he says that being anxious is like being a little god trying to control everything (pg.58). My attempts to control my life (or anyone else’s life) is an attempt to BE God, which is quite stressful. Anytime I try to take on God’s attributes as if they were my own is always an attempt in taking on more stress in my life. I am not God and I cannot be God and any attempt to do so is pure futility. No wonder I can be so stressed! I’m trying to put on omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence! That is quite impossible for a finite, flawed, sinful, and limited creature such as myself.
Our attempts to solve our problems, while sensible in some sense, may be a source of pride (and, thus, of anxiety). Miller holds up Psalm 131 as an example of how pride and anxiety mix together:
1 Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not get involved with things
too great or too wondrous for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like a weaned child.3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
Psalm 131:1-3
both now and forever.
Many (most?) of our attempts to solve our problems is just pride veiled as wisdom. Our proud hearts and haughty eyes says, “I CAN and I WILL solve this!” Yet, the psalmist says, “I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me.” Another translation for the words “too great” or “too wonderous” are “too difficult” or “too complex” (pg. 30 from the discussion guide). We become overwhelmed by situations too difficult or too complex for us because we are simply incapable of solving them. We cannot control them and we cannot properly manage them.
What, then, are we to do? How, then, are we to react? The psalmist says, “Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child. Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.” We must bring our souls, our spirits, our emotions to a place of quiet trust in God even in the midst of chaos. We must realize that God is not only the “Solver” of our problems, but, better yet, He is the One who Sends our problems and is using them to as sanctified scrub-brushes to make us holy. If our Father knows the hairs on our heads, and if He consents to each little bird that falls to the ground (Matthew 10:29-31), then will He not take care of us? Is He not taking care of us NOW, even IN the darkness, IN the storm, and IN the confusion and chaos? We must trust God more than we trust ourselves. We must give up our pride to solve everything (literally!) and submit to Him. This is not a call to inaction, but it actually might be a call to more reflective action that trusts AS we attempt to act AND as we FAIL to solve our problems. Trusting God while we fail is an almost unstoppable situation. Facing our problems should also springboard us to prayer and to lean in on God more, not less. May God use our trials to reveal our inaptitude, to drive us to trust Him, and to cause us to see His Sovereign plan as superior to our own.