All Your Anxiety

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” — 1 Peter 5:6-7 NASB

One of the biggest problems that Christians, and people in general, face today is stress. “My life is stressful.” “My work is stressful.” “I can’t get enough sleep.” We just get ourselves worked up beyond what we can handle and it’s overwhelming. 

For the unsaved world, it’s understandable why they’d be stressed and anxious. And I think as you read what God’s taught me,  you’ll understand why I said that. But why are Christians anxious? Why are God’s people so stressed out? Should we be stressed out, or is there an alternative? I want to look at a passage and a story that many of us heard in Sunday School as children,  and I want to pull out more than just the miracle that Christ performed.

“Now on one of those days Jesus and His disciples got into a boat, and He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they launched out. But as they were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended on the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger. They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm. And He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?””   — Luke 8:22-25 NASB 

Jesus asked his disciples a serious question? “Where is your faith?” They came to Him in the middle of the storm, not likely at the very beginning of the storm. Many of them were fishermen. They’d spent most of their lives in boats. They knew how to handle the average storm. And they tried their best to keep the boat upright, and up to now, they’ve succeeded. But they could also see it was a losing battle. Very soon, they believed, the boat was going to flip and capsize and they’d all drown and die. 

In a frantic and scared cry, they came to Jesus, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” They didn’t really even ask Him to help, they just came to Him in desperation. “We’re gonna die.”

How often do we feel like that in our week? “Oh, it’s gonna be a miracle if I live to see Saturday.” “I’m not gonna live to eat supper tonight.” You’re exaggerating a bit, I’m sure. But in the moment, you’re just overwhelmed and overworked. “It’s too much.  I can’t handle it!”

You can try to handle it on your own, work with your bosses or the people around you to divide some of the work to other capable people. But is that really what God tells us to do? Not necessarily. Nothing wrong with lessening your workload, but that’s a temporary fix for a permanent problem. You need a permanent fix, a full solution. 

Look back at the first part of the verse in 1 Peter. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,…” Do you believe that God has the power to handle your stress and your anxiety? Do you believe that God can lessen those anxious feelings, and ease those overwhelming circumstances? Do you believe God can help you at all? You should, because He can. God has the strength to help you. 

God’s the one who gave you the hard times. Not to teach you how to fly on your own, that’s the world’s belief, that’s the devil’s teaching. God brings hard times and hard days and hard circumstances to teach us to rely on Him. God didn’t bring a storm onto the disciple’s boat to teach them how to handle a stronger storm than what they’ve handled before. God brought the storm to teach the disciples “Trust me.” “Where is your faith?” “Do you believe I can take care of you, or don’t you?”

God woke up, fully aware of what’s going on, and very quickly told the wind and the storm to calm down and cease. He proved His power. He proved His might. But then He looked at the disciples and essentially asked them “Why didn’t you call me sooner? Why did you wait till you were almost dead? Don’t you have any faith in my power?”

So I put it to you. Do you have faith in God’s power? Do you believe that God can and will take care of you? Do you believe that God can ease or even cease your problem? You should, because He has the power and ability and even the desire to help and comfort you. So why aren’t you calling on Him? Why aren’t you taking your problems to Him? Why are you sitting helplessly in your own problems when there’s a solution only a prayer away? 

Look to Jesus. Place your faith and trust in Jesus and His power. When you trust God, all your attention is on Him, that’s when all your problems get smaller and seem to disappear. The hymn writer, Helen Lemmel, said it in one of the best ways I can think of. 

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus. / Look full in His wonderful face. / And the things of earth will grow strangely dim / in the light of His glory and grace.”