Working Out Your Worries - Part 3

Now that we’ve made our lists and figured out what we can do about those things that are causing us to worry, we can start to dig a little deeper.  This is where the real work starts, where we start to analyze our core fears and motivators.

Question 3 - Why am I worried about this or why does it matter?

Behind every anxious thought is a fear.  We need to uncover and understand that fear.  What exactly are we afraid of?  We may think it’s obvious, but it’s not always.  For example, someone may say they are afraid of losing their job.  That may seem straightforward, but there are many sub-fears behind that fear.  Sub-fears may include the fear of losing prestige in the eyes of peers, fear of needing and asking for help, fear of losing health benefits and not being able to get treatments, fear of starvation, fear of a credit score decline or bankruptcy, fear of needing to move in order to get another job or to downsize, fear of marital and familial strife, and the fear of the longer term impacts it has on their kids educational choices or their own retirement plans.  That’s a whole lot of fear.  And we can take it down another level from there.  For instance, what fears are underlying the limitation of their children’s future educational choices, or what is underlying the fear of a bankruptcy?  When you keep digging into each fear you eventually get to the motivational centers behind each of them. 

When I dig into my fears, I usually find that pride, need for acceptance, and a desire to be special are at the root.  When we faced unsurmountable financial difficulties in our mid 20s, what concerned me most was not that my kids wouldn’t eat, but that we wouldn’t eat what we wanted to eat.  I wasn’t as concerned about not having a place to live as I was concerned that the place I would live did not live up to the expectations I had in mind for what I felt I deserved.  My concerns revolved around the loss of prestige I felt we would experience as well as the shame and rejection I would feel if anyone figured out what happened.  It was overwhelming.  It was prideful.  And it was revealing about what mattered most to me.  That’s not to say that if you’re looking at an unemployment situation and fearing making ends that your fear is based solely on self-image.  Your motivators may be very different than mine.  But it is important to get to the bottom of the fear, to identify the motivators and then to bring that to the Lord.  I have found that when I honestly dig to the heart of the matter and bring that in prayer to the Lord, there is a reassurance that flows from Him.  For me, I am reminded that my worth is not found in the materiality of this life.  I am reminded that life is not about me, more specifically, that my own life is not even about me.  My life is about Him being glorified through His work in me.  Those assurances come with no condemnation for the selfish state of my heart, but instead with a promise that He will complete the work of sanctifying my heart and He will use that very situation in the process.  There is a peace that comes, but its duration is varied.  Sometimes I have that peace for days.  Other times it vanishes in less than an hour and I have to go back to Him.

When we find ourselves tied up in anxious knots about very real concerns, the Christian response is always, “did you pray about it?” and then Philippians 4:6 sometimes gets thrown at us as a weapon to shame us for our apparent lack of faith.  I recognize that I just prescribed prayer in the previous paragraph… because it works.  But this kind of prayer is different from the typical kind of praying for our requests that we think of, or at least that I used to do.  Upon reading this verse I have at times just vomited all my concerns to God, splattering them about, nonsensically.  God is certainly able to sort through that kind of chaotic explosion of requests, but it doesn’t do much to change me.  There have been times where I have been tangled with worry in my mind that I would sit in prayer before the Lord and say nothing.  I didn’t know where to begin and would simply hope that the Holy Spirit was making those utterances on my behalf.  Sometimes all I’d get out was “Lord help me!” which I suppose is better than nothing.  Other times, I was afraid to start praying because if I got started, I would never stop laying out everything that was worrying me at that moment, and I had other responsibilities I had to attend to.  Then there were times I wouldn’t pray at all because I was mad at God and didn’t want to talk to Him, or I was afraid to come before Him because I knew my heart was out of joint.  I have more recently discovered the kind of prayer that is most effective (for me) in my anxiety is that which I described in the previous paragraph, complete and open honesty, total transparency, if you will.  It’s where I lay my heart out before Him, acknowledging the self-involved motivations and my need for His help, not just in my circumstance, but in rebuilding the motivations of my heart.  In that kind of prayer, He can take us to a place that Paul talks about in Philippians 4:11 – 13 “…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  This is the kind of prayer that doesn’t necessarily change our circumstances, but it changes us to endure with strength and peace the circumstances we face.  

This can be a difficult task and it may take a while to get to the bottom of the motivators.  Many of us will resist the exercise because we don’t want to be confronted with what may truly be motivating us.  I assure you that it is worth it and that there is no motivator that you will uncover which is not already in abundance in human hearts.  There is no motivator that is beyond the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In fact, whatever ugliness we uncover, He is already well aware of it.  I always tease that once I can acknowledge how terrible I can be, I’ve at least started reducing my sinning by no longer lying about it. 

Perhaps your motivations are much less selfish than mine, that food and housing insecurity are deep down your real fears, not just the type or kind of food or housing you might have (as was the case with me).  Here we must look to His Word.  I’ll repeat what I posted last week under the things that we don’t control:  God is at work and He has a plan.  Trust His plan and His timing.  He will not leave nor forsake you.  He clothes the flowers and feeds the birds.  He will no less clothe and feed you.  “…God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19).  Do reach out to your local church for help.  They are resources and ministries for these types of things, and absolutely no shame in asking.  We are called upon to support, help, and love one another through crisis.

It can take a long time to get to the bottom of what drives our deepest fears and insecurities.  It’s important work.  It’s hard work.  There are no shortcuts here, but it’s worth it.  That kind of intimacy with the Lord that this work fosters is so very sweet.  You may still experience anxiety, I know I do from time to time, but it’s much less disabling and less likely to lead to the kind of “shutting down” that transitions into a depressive episode or despair.  Pour your heart out to the one who loves you and knows you best.  Tell Him the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Let Him work on you little by little.  This time of great uncertainty could be a wonderful opportunity to deepen your dependence on Him.  I imagine it will become like one of those times in the old testament where God was encountered so profoundly that they built an altar to Him as a reminder of how He showed up in that moment.  It will be a time that many years from now you’ll look back to and even use it as a reminder of God’s faithfulness in your most uncertain hour.