BEYOND THE NOW

My wife and I are never in harmony when it comes to being impatient. I am by nature far more prone to be the one to anxious in life than her. However, there are times when she can be even more impatient than me.

A lot depends on what is a stake. She tends to be more focus on issues related to long term concerns whereas I get more obsessive about elements relevant to the moment.

Part of that is naturally because of my basic writer's mind. What is important to me often won't make sense to others because it is driven by some intuitive issue.

Now I only mention this to point out how we both approach the subject of worry from a different point of view. And I have a feeling that applies to a lot of people in life.

On a spiritual level we are told in the scriptures to "fret not" in one place. Jesus also mention about the futility of worry.

Yet it doesn't keep any of us from worrying from time to time. At the core, of course, is the issue of our trust in the Lord. Faith and worry don't really go together. So whether we are willing to admit it, when we worry we are in essence expressing our inability to trust God.

I believe God understands this aspect to our nature and thus is longsuffering with our stumbling. But I also think that the Lord will sometimes place us in a situation where worrying is more of an issue for the sake of teaching us that we might not be as mature as we think.

The last year I've had the occasion to deal with this one person who thinks that as a Christian the individual is full of faith. Yet this same person is incredibly prone to panic attacks over the smallest issue. And when suffering from such attacks the individual is hardly trusting the Lord.

Yet this same person I doubt would ever see such anxiety attacks as a lack of faith. In the individual's mind worry isn't associated with a lack of faith. This is a person who also is obsessive about being very controlling in life and of other people and has not ability to admit to ever doing anything wrong. I only mention it to indicate how sometimes worry is connected with other problems in our spiritual life.

I have this one brother in the lord that often is very good and speaking his mind in a blunt manner. He has mentioned at times the stunned reaction he gets from some believers when he points out that worry is in reality a sin.

People like to think of sin as only being when you do something seriously wrong. But I feel my friend is completely correct in how he interprets the subject of worry.

And I think when we can be honest with ourselves it always brings us closer to God. Providing we don't spend the whole time trying to somehow excuse our behavior as something other than a sin.