A month before my ninth birthday, during the closing hymn of an otherwise lifeless church service, the Lord Jesus first called me to come to him. Standing there beside my dad, I did. Shortly afterward, God began teaching me to hear his voice in his Word, even his King-James-Version word.
The summer before I entered high school, I bought a J.B. Phillips paraphrase of the New Testament. I still have that well-marked volume, though the cover has fallen off. Of all the verses I underlined way back when, this is the one I can still quote:
Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:6-7)
Coming to Christ as a child, I found rest. In this life with him, I have often experienced peace. And yet, anxiety has proven a formidable foe all along the way. It has repeatedly tried to banish me from rest and to tell me I cannot return.
When that has happened, God has pointed me again to Philippians 4:6-7. I’ve recalled it, repeated it, acted on it. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not, rest has returned.
Often, I’ve wondered: How can I let so many things unnerve me? How can I keep laying hold of rest, by God’s grace, only to lose it again and again?
But now, the Lord has showed me: This is no small battle. I’m cooperating with him to overcome what has been deeply embedded in my life from the start, and what was likely embedded in previous generations too.
With this new understanding, I’ve come to realize: God does not intend Philippians 4:6-7 to shame me each time I feel anxious. Rather, these verses call me to come to God as often as worry reappears, to talk to him openly, honestly and thankfully, and then to wait for him, to hope in him.
For these verses also remind me: The peace and rest that I seek originate in God. It is not my responsibility to reproduce them in my life. It’s his.
And he has never stopped working to accomplish it.
This post is adapted from Chapter 2, Return to Your Rest: A Spirit-to-spirit Journey.
Image by donterase from Pixabay
