Assaulted, by guilt, by shame, by fear. Over everything.
I was sitting at a stop sign on my way to work last week, under an enormous billboard. A seductively smiling blonde woman in a white bikini towered over me, emblazoned words across her bare upper thighs: "Get back the life you've always wanted". And maybe none of us actually believe that the key to content living is being a blonde size 2, but most of us do harbor some kind of shame over our bodies (or physical appearance in general), and how unattractive we think we must look to everyone else.
Light blinked green, my foot on the accelerator jerked my car forward, and I, lost in thought on the thousands of dollars we spend on what we think will make us worth it.
If shame's not your thing, there's always guilt. If you have any conscience and social awareness at all, being born in a country where rape, starvation, murder, or theft is not something you will experience on a daily or weekly basis can make your heart clench listening to stories of sex slaves, concentration camps prisoners, and the disenfranchised in squalor poverty. Compassion is beautiful, and the trip to twisted guilt that demands you owe something because of their terror and pain isn't as far as you'd think.
Fear isn't in short supply either. In fact, a little old man at the gym recently asked me about my plan to pay for medical school, and my response was a halfhearted, "Well, it's going to have to be loans, because there really is no other way for me to come up with that kind of money in 3 months". The subsequent eyes widening when he heard the amount was quickly followed by a disapproving/sympathetic clucking of the tongue, as he told me, "Well, look on the bright side-in a few years, our government is going to collapse, and when our system fails, you won't have to worry about those loans anymore".
Thank you, you little old wizened pillar of consolation.
Offenses mount; our defenses fall. 'Stressed' is how most of us describe our status, and we worry worry worry about how little control we have over the world. Over our jobs, our families, our image, our safety, our health, those being tortured, those starving, those being exploited, the American church, the state of our government, the state of our relationships, the persecuted church, the state of our bank accounts, the state of world affairs, the state of our future. Our hearts squeeze, minds unfocused, we fidget, force smiles, gaze preoccupied, head down, shoulders tightened, we miss it. We miss the beautiful now. And even that realization serves to stress us even further.
Someone wrote to me once, "To worry is to dethrone God, to deny His power, ability, and authority". To be honest, that's a little vague for my comfort, because there is no Scripture that says that anything we do, think, or say, can literally detract anything from God. He's God. Shutting your eyes and saying it's dark at 3pm. doesn't make the sun any less bright. But perhaps, an addition makes this true:
To worry is to dethrone God, to deny His power, ability, and authority in our lives. To shut your eyes and say it's dark at 3 pm. does make your perception of life dark.
We mitigate God's power, we confine Him to small things; maybe because we live small lives, maybe because we're just kind've freaks. Control freaks.
We remove Him from a place of authority and sovereignty, and consolidate Him to the you don't really factor much into the actual solution of this place . The one we never really consider relying on because we've got 700 plans of self-sufficiency. And it works for us, because then, when things work out, we can attribute it to how hard we worked, how smart we are, how capable, how competent! Who feels their need for grace when they're in control?
God is either good, or he's not. He's either completely sovereign, or completely irrelevant. He either deserves our full attention, or to be left behind. He is our complete provider, offering abundant grace, or He cares nothing for and doesn't bother with the details of us. But to worry is to choose. A deliberate choice to remove Him from His rightful place as our Sovereign, our Protector, our Provider, our Healer, our Father, in our lives.
Once He's removed, we're easy targets. Give up central truth and watch how quickly you spiral and fall. Into bitterness, despair, depression, nihilism, cynicism, anger, addiction. Watch how the Gospel of grace becomes ashes in your mouth because you believe it in theory but you won't live it in reality. Watch how you exchange an attitude of humble gratitude for one of stressed-out fretfulness. Watch how you shrink God.
Life.
It can be brutal and unforgiving and terrifying to get out of bed some days, because the weight of the world we carry is far too great. There are only two hands that could ever bear it, and they already have.
Yes, life can be hard. Hard, uncertain, and uncontrollable. But we were never asked to be in control. The Bible does not stress a progression from incompetent sinners to competent leaders. Peter was still hacking off ears, John and James were still duking it out with the others about seating arrangements in eternity after a couple of years in Jesus's presence. Years.
Why?
Because Jesus did not say, "Be competent". He didn't put that expectation on us. He didn't say, "Get a hold of yourself and exercise some control over your life".
He said, "Follow Me".
Straight into a life of wild freedom.
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