Rest is Better

Would you consider yourself a worrier? If we are familiar with God’s commands, we don’t like to admit it because we know He has said to us over and over, “Fret NOT.” We could say fretting and worry is one of the BIG “Don’ts” in the Bible.

How does one ever get to that peaceful and contented place of NOT worrying? I dare say it doesn’t just happen because we need it to happen.

For me? I was a born worrier. Maybe because I naturally like to control my environment and take command of what goes on around me? I tend towards schedules and plans and organization. These particular personality traits typically give over to trying to figure everything out, wanting to “fix” all my problems (and everyone elses), a need to know how everything will turn out… if I can’t then I worry... or if something or someone throws a curve ball into the mix, oh my… then what?

Actually that was more me a lot of years ago. After years of being overcome with anxiety, fears and worry and the effects of these showing up in many unwanted ways in my physical and emotional state, I made the determination to be free through the power of the gospel.

God sent His word and healed us . I literally looked up scriptures about trusting Him, and every passage I could find about peace and rest and the fathomless, unfailing love of God and ate them like medicine until I believed they were true for me. Because my mind was changed to a whole new belief system, anxiety and fear no longer had a strangle-hold on me. With this new way of thinking, I had a choice about the way I responded to whatever life happened to bring my way. In the process my relationship with the Savior of my soul was forever altered as well.

Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest says this about worry:
“Resting in the Lord does not depend on external circumstances at all,

but on your relationship to God Himself.
…We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not "out" to realize His own ideas; He was "out" to realize God's ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God. … All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.”

Ouch! Glad he said that and not me. But doesn't it ring true?

When I’m tempted to worry I still return to the same course the Spirit of God so lovingly taught me all those years ago. It was a gradual thing learning (and I’m still learning) to rest in God’s great love and concern for me. At first, I had to believe before I saw any change but then as a result of believing differently, I began to see changes in my life. It’s hard to describe but the way I felt physically and emotionally actually changed. Resting instead of worrying is something that happens in the deepest part of our being. Trusting God ‘feels’ completely opposite of worry and fear which makes me jittery, upset, angry, stirred up, anxious. I would describe “the feeling” of resting in God this way: it’s a smooth, cozy, comfy, cushy place way in the pit of my soul that knows and trusts God to be God. He is my Lord, He is my Savior, my refuge, my safety, my Healer, my Deliverer… He gave His Son to die for ME… He will take care of me and everything that concerns me. I rest in Him, I lean on Him, I run to Him, I hide in Him… great is my peace.