Book 2

After reading this post, please leave a comment on your preference for the book title and subtitle. Which would you be most likely to click on? The two options are:

TITLE:
1) Peace through Faith
2) Don’t Worry—God Is Awesome

SUBTITLE:
A) How to Trust God When You’re at the Breaking Point
B) Finding Peace through God’s Most Comforting Attributes

I recently taught a class on what the Bible teaches about anxiety. You can find the full class here. The first half of the class has been published in the book, Anxiety and the Peace of God, available here. The material for the second book, which is the topic of this post, is the second half of the class, beginning with session 19.

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Trust God! … To Do What?

The phone rings and you get some life-shattering news. It’s cancer. You’re fired. Your spouse wants a divorce. Big time anxiety.

Or suppose it’s little anxiety. Dinner is ruined. A coworker snapped at you. Your car is making a funny noise. Little anxieties or big ones—do you find it helpful when someone tells you, “Just trust God”?

Many Christians, if they are honest, would say it’s more annoying than helpful.

Why is that? Our entire religion is based on trusting God. We believe we are saved through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8) and that every hour of every day we live by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). It brings a smile to God’s face when we trust him (Hebrews 11:6). Isn’t “trust God” the sweetest invitation we can receive?

Here’s why it feels like a platitude: because it is a platitude—unless you complete the sentence. Trust God … to do what? To make your troubles go away? To make life easy? To do your will?

These are important questions because trusting God to do something he hasn’t promised will bring disappointment and even worse anxiety. The only path to peace is trusting God to do what he has promised.

Trust God’s Promises

The biblical word for promise refers to any affirmation God makes about the future, regardless of whether he uses the word “promise.”[1] God gave us his great and precious promises to tether us to future blessing. And it’s that guarantee of future grace that can replace your fear of future trouble with peace.

Trusting God’s promises is not only the key to overcoming anxiety; it is the key to overcoming every sin. According to 2 Peter 1:3-4, God’s promises rise out of his glory and goodness—his moral nature, and each time you trust one of them, you share in God’s moral nature by escaping the world’s corruption.

“By his own glory and goodness … he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

All spiritual growth, including overcoming anxiety, comes through trusting God’s great and precious promises. And there are specific promises for every kind of anxiety.

Think of one of your more troublesome anxieties. Which specific promise in Scripture are you striving to trust to calm that anxiety? Until you can answer that question, it’s not likely you will find peace.

Don’t Trust What God Didn’t Promise

Much of our unhealthy anxiety comes from unfulfilled expectations. You had an idea of how much sleep you’d get last night, you thought your vacation would go a certain way, you anticipated a nice, pleasant dinner, and when things didn’t go as planned, you got stressed. Perhaps you dreamed of having a wonderful marriage or a successful career. But now you can see that it’s never going to be what you imagined, and it seems the rest of your life will be a prison sentence of anxiety.

There are many expectations we don’t even realize we have until they go unmet. Consider a young couple who subconsciously expects their marital roles to be like that of their parents. The bride’s father always paid the bills, but the groom’s mother had that job. It isn’t until the first bills go unpaid that they realize each expected the other to do it.

The way to discover your subconscious expectations is through your disappointments. Every time you feel disillusioned, you’ve just uncovered an expectation.

Why doesn’t the word “expectation” appear in the Bible? Expectation is a universal experience. It’s a huge part of being human. So why wouldn’t the Bible mention it?

It’s because the English word “expectation” mashes two different concepts together that don’t belong together. The biblical term for expecting something God promised is “faith.” The biblical term for expecting something God didn’t promise is “greed.”

If all our expectations are set only on what God has promised, they will never be disappointed. If we feel God has let us down, it’s usually for one of three reasons:

• We assumed something was promised that wasn’t.
• We assumed God would act on our timeline instead of his.
• We assumed God would supply what we define as needs rather than what he determines we need.

You may have been told your whole life that God has promised certain things, and you’re so confident in what you’ve been told, it has never even occurred to you to check the Scriptures to see if the promise is really there.

From Expectation to Requests

What’s the solution to disappointment anxiety? Discern what God has and hasn’t promised. And if it’s something he never promised, replace your expectations with requests. Philippians 4:6 does not say, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything present your expectations to God.” It says, “present your requests to God.”

You can ask God for whatever you want (John 15:7). But don’t put your hope in God granting your requests. Put all your hope in God fulfilling what he has promised.

But what has God promised, exactly? Scripture is loaded with promises, and in my upcoming book, I discuss the ones that, over the decades of counseling experience, I’ve found to be the most helpful to people struggling with anxiety.

Most of the book, however, is devoted to the greatest promise in the whole Bible.

The Greatest Promise in the Bible

Without hesitation, I would point to Ezekiel 36:28 as the greatest promise God ever made. See if you agree.

“I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:28).

Have you ever thought through what that means? What is the difference between God simply being God versus being your God?

Well, ask yourself this—what’s the difference between saying, “That man is a doctor” and “He’s my doctor” or “Mr. Jones is a brilliant lawyer” versus “He’s my lawyer”? It means his abilities will be put to use for your benefit.

The promise “I will be your God” guarantees that whatever it means to be God, he will be that for you. He won’t just be omnipotent; he’ll use his omnipotence for your benefit. He’ll be omnipresent and omniscient for you. His love, patience, wisdom, creativity, mercy, justice, perfection, holiness—every attribute will be put to work for your good.

So that one promise, “I will be your God,” explodes into as many different promises as there are attributes of God. The Almighty says, “Everything I am, I’ll put into motion for you.” What promise could be greater than that?

In the book, we will take a deep dive into ten of God’s attributes—attributes that are especially helpful for soothing anxiety. At the end of the book of Job, God gave Job what he needed to calm his anxiety. But it wasn’t what Job thought he needed. What Job wanted was answers to his “why” questions. What provided instead was the answer to the “who” question. God spoke about his own nature—for three long chapters!

What Job really needed was an extended, deep contemplation of what God is really like. We can’t trust God to be God for us unless we know what it means to call him “God.” And what it means for him to be all that for you!

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Don’t forget to leave a comment with your vote for the title and subtitle:

TITLE:
1) Peace through Faith
2) Don’t Worry—God Is Awesome

SUBTITLE:
A) How to Trust God When You’re at the Breaking Point
B) Finding Peace through God’s Most Comforting Attributes

 

 

[1] See Romans 9:9.