“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Paying too much attention to our problems is worrying. Worrying and anxiety cut through every social and cultural barriers and it’s seems natural to worry. But God calls it sin. Tolerating negative and fearful emotion is not productive. It depletes us. It steals our joy, energy, focus and makes us feel hopeless.
Do you know that there are evil spirits behind these negative emotions waiting to take advantage of us? Most especially fear! Fear is the most powerful tool that Satan uses to rob us of peace, joy, and many of our blessings in Christ . The devil sets us up through this negative emotions, he starts with our thoughts, then manifesting in our emotions, and consequently wrong emotions will lead us into wrong actions. You see, that is exactly what the Scripture says:
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7). What ever we accommodate in our mind is what we will eventually become.
Jesus repeated warned us not to accommodate worrying thoughts about our life, but instead, to seek first the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 6:25-34). Meaning, we should not think too highly of our opinions and ways of doing thing, but humble our self to God’s thoughts and His ways of doing things.
We worry a lot because we try to figure and work things out with our limited view and understanding. But the Lord says “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.” (Proverbs 16:9). That simply means, oh yes, we can make our plans…. but at the end of the day, it cannot happen without God making it sure. It is God who determines our steps because, God’s thoughts and ways are far higher than ours. A good illustration is Abraham, God said to Abraham:
“Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2)
Can you imagine how difficult this instruction must have been for Abraham? Yet He did not question God. Abraham was a man who honored and highly esteemed God’s counsel for his life. And he would have sacrificed his son if God didn’t stop him. Today we now know it, but Abraham didn’t know it then, that God was using him, to teach and reveal His plan of salvation for the human race!
Abraham could not in all his reasoning and imagination then, put together God’s bigger and better plan for him and the entire human race through his act of obedience. God’s expectation and plans for us far far exceeds what we can think or imagine!
Prescription for worry and anxiety, let us not play the role of God, by reasoning ourself out of God’s instruction for us. Let us humble ourselves to what God says about our situation. Let us learn like Abraham to honour and esteem God’s counsel (His Word). Because God knows what is best for us. Lets think higher thoughts and take the higher way.
Reflection: "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." (Matthew 6:33)