When Worry Overwhelms – by Desmond Ford
Jan 31, 2016 1867
When we’re threatened with worry the first thing we need to remember is God himself. When we really believe that God loves us – that he intends our good – then we will stop worrying so much. We will trust God as a child trusts a loving parent. Our torments will disappear, for our wills will be swallowed up in the will of God. What a difference that can make for all of us!
Consider Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trust in You.” It can be translated this way: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind stops at you, oh God.” God lives in the future as well as the present. Nothing ever takes him by surprise. He counts even that fifth sparrow that was thrown in free when men paid two farthings for four sparrows.
He attends the funeral of every sparrow. He counts the hairs of our head. Can we not let our minds stop at God? He keeps him in perfect peace whose mind stops at God.
Paul was a man who had unending pressure. Look at his words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: ‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not see are eternal.’
That person to whom eternity is real is the person who finds it easiest to live in the present moment. When God is real to us and when God is near to us, we will trust him with both past and future. We will look to him for wisdom and strength and live for the present. Those who see the invisible – they alone can do the impossible.
Recall those famous words found in Genesis 16:13 “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees.” Many people understand these words to mean that we had better watch what we do as God will punish us. But that is what they mean. Instead these words were first uttered by a poor woman who had been banished from her home and family and was wandering aimlessly in the desert. Suddenly, God spoke to her, and she exclaimed with joy, gladness, and confidence, “You are the God who sees.”
However worried you are at this moment, God is bending over you in love. You have been purchased by the blood of his Son. He knew you before you were born. All of life’s ups and downs are meant to prepare you to live with him for eternity. Say to yourself frequently: “God sees me,” which means he sees all our problems, all our perplexities, and all our difficulties. He not only sees, he cares, and he can and will do something about it. Trust him. Blessed is he whose mind stops at God.
– Des Ford. Rom 8:27–32. Adapted from “Wisdom for Worry Warts.”
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