Contentment Lesson #10

Chapter 10 - Trusting God with the What Ifs
Calm My Anxious Heart - Linda Dillow

Linda says that she believes there are Spiritual Diseases, and how What If and If Only are the two worst. "What If looks to the future and worries about what God might allow. If Only looks to the past and grumbles about what God has given. The first leads to anxiety, the second to anger."

She has a friend that had longed to have a baby, and when her friend finally got pregnant and had a baby girl, she was perfect - and even nicknamed her "Angel Baby." But they soon realized something was wrong, and after a lot of testing they realized she was autistic. A few years later she had a son - and the What Ifs were like a prison to her as they had to wait until he was older to do testing. She had to learn to choose faith instead of giving in to the anxiety of the What Ifs.

At a time when Linda was very anxious about her own daughter's battles with seizures and at the time living oversees, the Lord gave her Jeremiah 17:5-8 which says:

"Thus says the Lord, "Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is in the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit."

These verses show us a man who trusts in himself vs. a man who "not only trusts in the Lord but also makes the Lord his total trust."

And I can resonate with what Linda says about a person who tries to handle things themselves: "Waiting is too hard, too painful, and God just works way too slow." Patience is not one of my strongest character traits...and I have definitely had a lot of waiting in the last year...and it HAS been hard and painful...and it DOES seem that God is working too slow...but I also know that His timing is perfect. Of course that is so much easier to say on the other side of waiting.

Linda writes, "We become....spiritually dwarfed and with a dull, dry lifeless appearance. Our hearts become a desert, and we do not enjoy the prosperity of the heart in communion with God. Our focus is on what we can do to get what we want rather than on how we can trust."

Next Linda talks about the person who trusts in God. "This [person] is vibrant and rich in peace. Her eyes are so focused on her Sovereign Lord that even in a year of continual problems she stays green and continues to bear fruit." This person has no anxiety! Linda had to continually pray and ask God to help her be like this second person - and God answered her prayers. She said that her view of God grew enormously as she learned to trust in Him.

"We can only trust God when our focus is on Him and not on our circumstances." Linda puts two different emphasis's on the following sentence:

Can you trust God?

Can you trust God?

"Contentment comes from a proper relationship to God, not from a response to the circumstances. Our What Ifs will either drive us to God and faith or they will drive us to worry and dependence on self. God gives peace and contentment; worry gives illness and misery."

Many times we can trust God in the beginning - but then doubt starts to creep in and Linda says that is when we start to "play catch" with God. We give the ball to God, then take it back, give, take, etc. We have to leave it with God and quit playing catch.

"Are you going to judge God by the circumstances you don't understand or judge the circumstances in the light of the character of God?"

Linda went back to her friend with her autistic child and wondering about her second. She told Linda that she finally had to make a choice, and said, "Linda, my purpose here on earth is to glorify God. If He knows that the best way for me to bring Him glory is to have two special-needs children, then I accept His will for me." That is so humbling. Could I have the same response? Could I make the same choice??

She trusted God even when she didn't understand, didn't feel like it, and couldn't see what He was doing. Her friend thought about what the worst-case scenario would be, and asked herself if she could trust God in that situation. She asked herself, "Would God still be God, would He still be Sovereign? Would He still be Love and Goodness? I answered, yes. After facing my worst What If, I made a decision to cast this huge anxiety on the Lord. I knew He cared for me. Then I asked God to give me the strength to live today, just today, to leave the fears and worries of tomorrow with Him."

A man by the name of Willis Carrier was faced with an impossible task early on in his career as an engineer, and he handled it this way:

1. Ask yourself what is the worst that can possibly happen.
2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.
3. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

This guy found that after doing this, he as able to relax, and he felt at peace instead of the anxiety he was feeling prior to this process. Linda gave examples in the Bible of people who in their own way did exactly what Willis did: the Apostle Paul and Queen Esther were just two.

Linda talked about another friend who found a lump in her breast, and she asked herself what the worst outcome would be. Her initial reaction was a mastectomy...but then she realized that for her, the worst would be death. And she chose to live her life in acceptance that if the worst happened, she would still trust God. She did end up with a mastectomy, but lived in peace and was able to stay calm and LIVE.

Linda's two friends obviously had some pretty serious What Ifs so it is a good perspective for us to keep ourselves in check, but our own What Ifs can seem very important to us when we are going through them, no matter how silly. Some of mine seem downright ridiculous...and I like the idea she gave of asking yourself what the absolute worst would be, and if I can accept it.

She ends with two different prayers...the first the Serenity Prayer, and the second is her own.

God grant me the serenity to accept that which I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Holy Father, I cripple myself spiritually by dwelling on the What Ifs. I confess that too often I've made control and strategies my strength. You have said that blessed are those whose strength is in You. I long to be a "blessed one" who makes You, the Lord God, my total trust.