“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:6-7

If we trust God, why do we worry?

It’s an easy question to ask, a simple concept to discuss… but, when it comes down to living out each hour… minute… second, we still feel anxiety begin to rise inside us at the first sign that something is not unfolding as we expected.

The obvious answer for Christians is: “We simply do not trust God as we should.”

I think we have a vision of God that is much too small, much too limited, much less gracious, and much less loving than what is actually true. Rather than an overwhelming Power who is able to blow our minds with a simple revelation, redemptive circumstance, or creative power… we often reduce God to a relatable concept and impose our own limitations based on our mental image of Him.

Another issue is that we have too high a view of ourselves; we see ourselves as too powerful, too right. We believe that our mindset of what life should be in the context of our culture is the ultimate goal or reality for which we should strive. When something begins to unravel unexpectedly, we begin to lose hope, confidence, and peace as we turn to a God in whom we haven’t really put much faith.

“Spiritual pride is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God.” -Timothy Keller “The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness”

God created us; He loves us. He has laid out in Scripture a method by which we may enjoy a more abundant life in this world than we could under our own power. If we truly believe this, we should trust that He is unfolding a story much better than one we could write on our own.

Trusting God begins with coming before Him in humility and submitting to His will over our own.

We should remember the words Jesus spoke regarding worry/anxiety:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” -Matthew 6:25-27