What's Love Got To Do With It?

The "outside reading" for today from the Message Guide is Phillipians 4:4-9. In it, Paul tells us to have no anxiety about anything, and to let our requests be known to God. Take a minute to read this passage. The first instruction is hard to do but easy to understand; the second is easy to do but hard to accept when what we ask for isn't delivered.

I know people whose hobby it is to worry. When they don't have anything in their immediate life to worry about, they go outside their bubble and latch on to other perceived problems. Grandmothers are really good at this skill, I've found. One I know worries when her grandchildren don't use the bathroom as often as she thinks is healthy or the kids fail to wear a coat outside when it is 68 degrees. Another I know stayed up all night worrying when her daughter left a purse at a wedding reception. Are these events worth that kind of worry? No. Is it easy to turn off needless worry? No.

Even though I poke fun at these ladies (and I will give them up; they are my mother-in-law and my own grandmother), like most of us, I also let anxiety overtake me. I usually reserve it for big things, since other family members are handling the bathroom, coat and purse problems that plague my family. And here is the hard part--when the problem is big, we think anxiety is worth something. But it's not. It just works us up more and more, and tends to lead us to believing that by worrying, we can fix a problem. False.

We can't. We can't undo other people's mistakes. We can't make other people sober, or honest, or faithful. Only God can do that, along with a willingness, the free will, of the person who is the object of our worry. Again, easy to understand; very, very hard to do.

But another part of this passage helps us with our anxiety--ask God to intervene. Make our requests known. Ask for healing, for mercy, for a change of heart and behavior in our troubled family or friends. Ask for opportunities to lead that person to Christ. Ask for your own anxiety to ease.

Some of us out there are in real battles right now. Maybe our families are falling apart. Maybe our jobs are in jeopardy. These are big things, anxiety-causing events. Just step back. Ask God to help you.

Pray. Pray. Pray.

Just try it. The worst thing that happens is that you stay right where you are. No one has ever fallen deeper into a hole by praying.

God doesn't promise us a rose garden (or maybe that's country singer Lynn Anderson). And he doesn't promise us that these worries will evaporate for us, or even be fixed. He only promises us love. But, to turn another musical phrase, it's all we need.