Grey clouds of anxiety

January 11, 2010

Maria Peace , 3 Comments

1 Pet 5: 5b – 7 God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  (By ) cast (ing)  all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

A Christian friend asks me how I’m doing.  I pause and search my thoughts to figure out a way to communicate that lack of contentment and peace that plague me.  What is it, exactly, that is wrong?   After all, I have many blessings and lack many troubles that trouble those I know.  At the time, I can’t really put my finger on anything in particular.  It’s just that I don’t FEEL like all is well.

Here’s my self-diagnosis.  When I think of those primary family members whom I love most:  son # 1, his wife and their baby, son # 2 and his fiancée, my husband – there is this grey cloud of anxiety that hovers OVER each of their heads and their lives.  They haven’t told me that such a cloud exists – I put the clouds there in my little world.  The cloud represents all the uncertainty that I feel about how their lives are going to turn out.

My pride and desire for control to script their lives IN ORDER to feed my happiness and peace is what has brought clouds into my life and obscured my joy.  As I read last night in an article by Paul David Tripp, when my treasure is based on something of this world, I start to get anxious, because nothing in this world is under my control.

So, here is the solution- pray about each of these situations/people whom I love – once a day.  If something specific comes up during the day, then humbly, acknowledging my dependence, pass on that request to my Father.  But no more fretting and arranging in my mind possible future scenarios for each.  This is pride-busting, because it’s admitting that Maria does NOT have control, that there is nothing I can do, or should do, but entrust each care to my Heavenly Father.  Even if I COULD script their lives and nothing untoward would happen to them, what perspective do I have that would mean my choices for them would be optimal?  Only God know what is best.  So why worry?

With all that time now freed up to think of other things, I can reflect on what will make me truly feel better – thankful thoughts about God, His goodness, His qualities, His promises, His amazing encounters with his sinful, sheep-like (or worm-like) children whom he loves.  I am convinced that what I feed on affects my mood.  The less I look at imaginary grey clouds and the more I look at the bright light of God’s glory, the more joyful will I feel.

Thought Control – or Double your Joy

January 7, 2010

Maria Peace, Reflections , , 2 Comments

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice..  (Phil 4:4)

Bless the Lord, O my soul, Bless His holy name.  Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits. (Ps 103:1-2)

If you live in me and my words remain in you….. (John 15:7)

Go to bed bummed, wake up bummed.  My fight is with my thoughts.  They are the material units that make up my moods.  If I am feeling out of sorts or down, I can usually trace it back to specific thoughts.

Notice how God has us figured out.  His antidote to our moods is to double and triple our thoughts about what is good – God.   He exhorts us “Lift your countenance and thoughts up towards Me – think about what is true and good and noble and pure and excellent.”    It really is a choice.

The other morning, I woke up feeling out of sorts.  I had been reading Psalm 103 the night before.  I recognized right away as soon as I padded into the bathroom that I DID have a choice.  So I prayed, “Lord, help me to bless you right now instead of muse about why I might be feeling bad.” It wasn’t that difficult to make the switch.

Later on my morning walk, I started cataloguing WHAT exactly was on my mind.  Some of my ‘worry thoughts’  had to do with me wanting  people in my life to live their lives the way I, MARIA, thought best.  I was struck with the presumptuousness of that mindset.  What a waste of emotional energy.  Isn’t it enough that I live MY life the way I sense God is directing me?   And there is plenty of work to do to order rightly my thoughts.

I read recently that for every thought about ourselves, we should look up and direct 10 heavenward.  I don’t know if I can do that, but my life would really be different if I just managed to dwell on God AS much as I dwell upon MARIA.  After all, God doesn’t promise that I’ll bear fruit if my thoughts abide in me, but only if I dwell in Him and His words and thoughts live in me.  Fruit # 3 is peace – the opposite of waking up ‘bummed’.

Coincidentally, in my teacher training, I have heard that it takes 10 positive strokes/kind interchanges/praises directed toward a student to equalize or cancel one humiliating/negative comment leveled at him.  If that is true of interaction between folks, then perhaps it also applies in our inner conversations.  Is it any wonder that some of us are so depressed, given how we talk to ourselves?

Making decisions – God’s way

January 3, 2010

Maria Prayer, Reflections , 1 Comment

Prov 16:9 – A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.

Prov 21:31 – The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance and victory are of the Lord.

Psalm 33:22 – Let Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, in proportion to our waiting and hoping for You.

Lamentations 3:25 – The Lord is good to those who wait hopefully and expectantly for Him

My question as I start the New Year – when do we submit and assume that present circumstances, however painful they are, are from the Lord and are being used for our sanctification?  And when do we work to change our circumstances?    Or to pose the question another way – do we do nothing in a trying situation and trust the Lord to bring about change?  Or do we do something and trust the Lord that He will guide our strivings?

Maybe I’m committing the fallacy of bifurcation, setting the question up as an either/or dilemma.  It’s hard to know.

In past decisions that we have made as believers, my husband and I waited for a sign and then acted, all along trusting that God was in the whole process, guiding it.  For example, three years ago I asked God for a sign to leave my former school and it eventually came (the waiting and trusting part).  Then I had to find another job (the action and trusting part).  More recently, we wanted to leave our former church.  We waited until my husband felt the time was right.  We looked (action) for another church and settled in quickly.

Now we are in a situation that feels heavy with import.  My husband is in a job that is unbearable most days – it sucks his soul dry.  He dreads it.  Through it all, he has depended on God for a good attitude and to help him to make a contribution.  And God has sustained him.  Is this ‘wrong’ job part of the sanctification process and therefore it would be a mistake to seek out something else?  Or maybe the whole trusting God through the job search adventure is the sanctification process?  Scripture seems to counsel both:  waiting and doing.

I think a situation similar to ours would be one in which a couple would like to have children but can’t seem to get pregnant.  Do they take things into their own hands and try fertility treatments?  Do they start the adoption process?  Or do they just accept they are childless and leave it as being their ‘chosen, assigned portion’, their cup or lot.   What do we do with those desires – the desire for a child, the desire for a job that brings joy?

At times I don’t know what to think.  As a wife, I want to give my husband good, biblical counsel.  I don’t want to steer him wrong and fall into traps similar to those that tripped up our first mothers (Eve, Sarah, Rebecca).  I can be encouraging to him one night and then fearful in the morning.  Nonetheless, here is how I leave the dilemma at the end of each day.  I remind myself and trust myself to God’s hands and His unchanging sovereignty.  After all, we are just pilgrims on His journey.  He IS directing the journey.  He put us on this planet at this time, in this country, among these people, with this skill set and outlook.  He, alone, has the plan.  This impatient traveller wants a glimpse at the map!

Why baptize babies?

December 28, 2009

Maria Colossians, Reflections, sacraments , Leave a comment

Colossians 2:12 Having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.

We are new to the reformed faith (PCA) and have been learning a lot about baptism and why infant baptism is practiced. I came out of a ritualistic, liturgical church where many people believe that the baptismal rite itself has the power to insure entry into Eternal Life for recipients. I rebelled and took up the view that baptism should be reserved for those who make a profession of faith. After all, Jesus commissioned his followers to disciple all people groups. Following that imperative, He then mentioned two component parts of that process: a) baptism b) teaching. I interpret the Great Commission as an activity whereby we share the good news about what Christ has done. People repent and put their faith in Christ’s work on the cross and in God’s promises of present spiritual gifts and in future grace. They are baptized as a sign of that transformation and they continue to be taught.

But what about infant baptism? Where does that fit in ? Why baptize a baby if he hasn’t repented yet because he hasn’t HEARD that he’s under God’s wrath? Why baptize a baby if he has yet to learn the way to escape God’s wrath, thus fleeing to Jesus?

A clue came to me today as I was meditating on Colossians 2:12. I am enjoying the process of memorizing the Book of Colossians. It’ll probably take me 6 months, but every moment spent on it is worth it. Memorizing Scripture as opposed to reading Scripture is like walking instead of driving by a place. You see so much more because every word has to be chewed on and placed in one’s memory.

Maybe infants are ONLY buried with Christ in baptism. They are raised to life later when given faith (faith comes from hearing…) and that faith is actually exercised. Verse 12 says that we are raised from death when we believe that God actually raised his Son from the dead. At the point we understand and believe God we get LIFE. So baptizing a baby is a good thing. It’s like Part One. It doesn’t magically impart eternal life. But it does bring a baby into the family of God and bodes well for the baby. Hopefully he is discipled so that faith can take root and grow. A crucial component of the infant baptism process in the PCA church is that only believers’ children are offered baptism. So the sacramental ceremony is a reminder to the parents and the wider covenant family of the church that they are undertaking the responsibility to train up this child in the faith.

How do we have peace when we’re caught up in anxiety about XYZ!

December 24, 2009

Maria Peace, Prayer, Reflections , 2 Comments

John 14: 27 b – Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

14:27a – (because)….Peace I leave with you: My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.

I’ve switched the order of verse 27, you’ll notice.

My husband is anxious about his job.  In fact, he hates his job.  It has been a source of intermittent disappointment and frustration for years.  His mood goes up and down depending on what happens at work.  His body manifests physical reactions when he especially feels stuck in his job.  In sum, he views his whole life through the lens of his feelings about his work.

As I have journeyed with him for almost 30 years, I have learned a great deal.  Today, as I was meditating on what seems like unanswered prayer, it occurred to me that every believer has something in his or her life that can be a huge distraction to peace with God.  We could have a child born with autism.  One of us could have cancer that doesn’t respond to treatment.  We could have an aging parent with Alzheimer’s.  Our children could be without faith.  So how does one obey Christ when he commands us NOT to fear, NOT to be anxious?  How does His imparting peace to us make a difference?

My conclusion, today, is that we have to compartmentalize the pain, to contextualize it in such a way to gain Christ’s perspective.  He has told us that each will have trouble in this life, but that He has given us His peace.  How are we to learn to RELY on His peace, unless we have very distracting trouble?  His peace cannot be made real to us, unless we HAVE to depend on it and see for ourselves that it is enough.  This is called living by faith.  The peace we all seek out, however, is the kind the world gives, circumstantial peace:  in my husband’s case – a solution to his career disappointment (a satisfying job).  In the other scenarios – a ‘normal’ child, a cancer-free spouse, an alert aging parent, born-again children.

How do we live so that His peace is real to us?  I think that we have to take time each day to soak in truth: to mediate on the grace we have been given, to look forward to the hope that is stored up for us in heaven, to remind ourselves of the promises/the guarantees that God has given us in faith.   Recalling these truths has to be the first thing we do each day, along with asking through prayer that the Holy Spirit remind us of the reality of Jesus’ promised peace.  Then as we are assaulted throughout the day by fear and doubt and discouragement, we can respond with faith as Jesus did when confronted by Satan.  “No, it is written…”

So, dear brothers & sisters let us seek to nurture Jesus’ peace in our hearts.  Let us make it ours, continually.  Just as soldiers are not passive, neither can we be passive in our pursuit of peace.  Nothing is static.  We are either moving toward God’s peace in our thoughts, or we are moving toward the discouragement that Satan sends our way.  His discouragement, based on lies, SEEMS to be the truth, because we live in his world.  However we don’t belong to the devil anymore.  As exiles in his world, we are living members in the Kingdom of Light (Truth), though for now living in the world controlled by Satan.

Well at least I’m thin!

December 21, 2009

Maria Reflections Leave a comment

….Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Pet 1:13

What do I set my hope, my happiness on?  Twice a week I go to the gym.  Depending on how I’ve eaten during the week, I am either looking forward to or dreading getting on the scales to verify my weight.  Donning the same workout outfit each time guarantees that the number will be accurate.  I’m extremely happy when the scale registers 131 or less.  Recently it has hovered at 133.  Attributing that 2 pound discrepancy to cold weather increasing my appetite or the start of the holiday season, I have decided that at 133, I am relatively happy.  Higher than that, I would be depressed.

Reading Peter’s admonishment to Christians to base their hope (and therefore, their joy) on something so dependable as God’s promise made me reflect how tenuous is the source of my happiness.  Doesn’t the status of my body fall into the category of ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ in Matthew 6?  Yet I allow my well-being to hinge on the status of something very temporary!  Jesus goes on to admonish his audience NOT to care so much about food and clothes, things the body needs, for even the Pagans run after those things.

So when I allow my whole mental attitude for the day to be based on how thin I feel, I am doing just what the world does.  How does that glorify God or even point to God?  It’s all about me feeling good about myself based on what I have done.

Lord, help me to wake up tomorrow morning and choose a different way to evaluate my mental status.  In that fog of checking to see if there are any real anxieties facing me, remind me of the grace you have given me.  Only then can I hope to rejoice in something far ‘weightier’ and more permanent (and absolutely guaranteed) than the pounds I carry.

Anxiety is unbelief

December 16, 2009

Maria Philippians, Prayer 5 Comments

Cast all your anxiety on Him for He cares for you. 1 Pet 5:7

The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Phil 4:5b-6

So I went to bed anxious and woke up anxious – a Charlie Brown fog hovering, blocking out the joy.  As I walked and talked to God, I argued with myself that God means for us to obey him in these commands.  They are not suggestions.  And that if he commands something, then he will give us the power to follow through.  What were my anxieties?  They involved relationships and job situations among people I love very much, for whom I pray and then obviously stay worked up about it.

Anxious me:  I HAVE prayed, but I just can’t get my mind off of these situations.  I really care about these people!

Sane me: But don’t you believe God?  He says that we are to pray about everything and GIVE him the situations and then get on with our job.

Anxious me:  what could be more important than these relationships and situations?  After all, I really LOVE these people!

Sane me:  but God has promised that he will take care of them.  Pray about them once first thing in the morning and then get on with what he wants you to do!

Anxious me:  and that would be….?

Sane me:  you’re an ambassador for Christ, you are to reflect the glory of God.  How can you sparkle and bring joy to others if you’re so worried about something?   You’re a walking billboard for there being NO GOD.

Anxious me:  so, I pray about these things first thing in the morning and then forget about them?

Sane me:  well, do you think your being anxious will HELP the situation?

Anxious me:  no..but sometimes I can’t help them popping into my mind

Sane me:  you’re right – and when they do nag at you, just remind yourself that you have entrusted them to the care of the one Person who CAN actually do something and will do the absolute BEST thing, because he loves them perfectly and knows what is best for their sanctification.

Anxious me:  okay..I will confess my anxiety and lack of belief and try again.

**

And Praise the Lord – by the end of the day, 2 of the situations had improved and I had spent the day out in the world doing my job of being an ambassador of Hope.

Now it’s a new day, and with God’s help, I will make the same decision so that this casting problems and leaving them in God’s hands becomes a new pattern.

Worse than I thought, but more loved, too

December 13, 2009

Maria Reflections Leave a comment

Recently, God has been bringing to my awareness, painfully, my dark nature.  This is an almost daily occurrence.  I think I have always known this aspect of myself, the selfish me that would horrified if another person were privy to my thoughts.  But I have to deal with it now.  I do repent and ask forgiveness.  But I am still shocked that I’m not seeing a diminution of my selfishness.

This morning I was wallowing in disgust and despair – not a fun combination.  But thanks be to God, He reminded me of what I have heard several times – that we are FAR worse/horrid/black-hearted than we can imagine but far more loved as well. Whew!  I realized that maybe this is part of the purification process..the heat has been increased and the dross increasingly is rising to the top …more to burn off.  But all in a secure context of safety and maximum love.  It still surprises me, however.  I didn’t grow up Christian: I don’t have an older woman in my family who has told me to expect this.    I wonder, what is the next stage?

Physical Union as Sacrament

December 7, 2009

Maria sacraments 1 Comment

In today’s offering (7 Dec 09) at Skipmoen.com, he talks about the sexual union in marriage as something akin to worship. He writes, “Given by God, consummated in His garden of delight, enacted under His banner according to His design, sexual intimacy is an act of worship, an experience of something connected directly to holiness, so close to God’s nature that it is as if we are burned by His flames.” I realized that what he is talking about are Sacraments. My husband and I now attend a church where two sacraments are practiced regularly, Holy Communion and baptism. I have always struggled with the significance of the Eucharist. Never have I felt the need to reenact it. Once I had a conversation with a friend who maintained that sharing in the Lord’s Supper was the highlight of his Sunday worship experience. For me, it has always been the sermon. I love words. I would rather read a book than watch a movie, or attend any cultural event. I feed on words. In more self-exalting moments I dismiss those who ‘need’ Communion as perhaps less intellectual than I.

But God humbled me this morning while reading Skip Moen’s commentary. I suddenly saw physical actions as necessary as and certainly more transcendent than words. My husband can tell me he loves me, but when we are in the midst of our most intimate sharing, I KNOW most assuredly that he loves me, needs me and is giving himself to me. So maybe THAT is what my friend experiences each time he physically approaches God’s alter and partakes of the bread and wine. I’m looking forward, now, to my next experience of the Sacrament of Holy Communion. I’m anticipating that I might actually FEEL that God loves me.

My life verse

December 3, 2009

Maria Disciplines, Reflections Leave a comment

I’ve settled on Ephesians 1:5- 6 as my life verse (for right now!). “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

Paul is encouraging me to really understand that I exist solely so that someone can look at my life and see how marvelous God is for providing Jesus to create a way to be reconciled with God, have peace with Him and have a perfect record credited to one’s account.  These two verses are very challenging!

Every day I pray one of John Piper’s prayers:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the actions of my hands serve to magnify the infinite worth of Jesus Christ and his death.

The only problem is that I haven’t yet lived a day and done that!  I tend to end up magnifying myself.  Yesterday, I chatted with the truck driver who delivered our Florida fruit for the Sophomore Class fruit and peanut sale.  I asked him how he spent his hours on the road.  When he mentioned that he liked to listen to Howard Stern, I launched into my sales pitch about podcasts and how there is so much rich material one can download from the internet.  I signed his delivery paperwork, he left and I realized that I had wasted an opportunity to make a plug for how marvelous Jesus is.  I actually was motivated to show him how marvelous Maria is.

This is the story of my life up through yesterday, but I live in hope that one of these days I actually will witness to Christ.  Not what he has done for me, but just what he has done, in history.

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