Philippians 4:6-7 // Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
A recent study performed by the ADAA, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, found that an astounding 43% of the population of the United States struggles with worry! In fact, they described it as the most common mental illness in America.
All of us have at one time or another worried about something. No one has ever escaped worry, as it loves to battle for our mind and keep us dwelling on the difficulties of our life. It does everything it can to blind us from solutions and keep us in constant fear. And when we are in fear, we cannot live the abundant and courageous life that God has called us to live.
One of the things I love about observing little children is that they often go about their lives without any fear. Their lack of exposure frees them to imagine what’s possible in life, instead of what’s negative. I’ll never forget playing with my cousins as a small child back in South Carolina. We would love to go to play at nearby lakes, and search for clams in the sand. Whenever we dug them out, we would open them right up. With toes buried in the sand, we would laugh together without a care in the world.
Well let’s just say, you couldn’t pay me to do that now! As an adult, I now live in the wonderful world of “what ifs.” Today, every ‘what if’ scenario I could think about would make me opt out of going back to that lake. The snake and bug bites. The alligator attacks. Every negative thing I could think of would spark instant worry and fear in me and cause me to only focus on every negative scenario that could happen.
What would it be like to be a child again? To have a childlike faith, free of fear and full of confidence, knowing that we have a wonderful God who loves us and wants to take care of us. Could you imagine a life where you push past every fear, every anxiety and every worry? Well that is the life our God wants us to have.He wants nothing more than to bring more of heaven on earth for us to experience.
Now I know our brains can seem to be hardwired for negativity, but I want you to know that we as believers are able to rewire our brains and develop new positive thoughts and habits. It’s not easy, but if we can commit to renewing our mind daily, where we deny ourselves the opportunity to dwell on the negative and focus our attention on a God who is bigger than our problems, everything is possible!
I want to encourage you today to begin to magnify our God. When you magnify God, you are making Him bigger. And the bigger He becomes, the more those “what ifs” begin to disappear and are replaced with a life full of freedom and faith.
*This devotional is from A God First Life, written by Pastors Michael and Charla Turner
