What is worry, and how can Christians be free from it?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: Can you help me understand worry from a Christian point of view, and how I can be free from it?

It’s something of an Australianese to say ‘no worries’ or ‘she’ll be right…’ … … … but … … … there are worries, and she won’t always be right… in fact, the Australian Bureau of Statistics records that, in 2018, 13% of 3.2 million Australians had an anxiety-related condition, a number which has surged during the course of COVID.

So, as Christians, how can we think about worry and anxiety? Here’s a few thoughts.

First: worries remind us of our need for Jesus.

A couple of months ago the engine light came on in our car, and I didn’t know what it was for. I ignored it for the rest of the drive home from work, but along the way I felt the engine start to splutter and I didn’t know why. Turns out I had lost a spark plug, which has quite a dramatic effect on a small car engine, but you see, that light was a signal to a deeper problem.

Worry is like that. Every single human being has worries because we all have fears – they are different and to different degrees, but we all have them – because they are built our human nature. And, like ignoring the engine light in a car, we can end up causing far more damage if we ignore the warning signs of worry in our lives.

So the question is: will we call for help? And if we do, who are we going to call?

For the Christian, the engine light of worry signals our need to draw near to our Lord; they are like a compass orienting us to the ‘north that is Jesus Christ.’ That’s the beautiful thing about the whole edifice of Christianity, by the way – that we can draw near and know God because God has drawn near to know us in Christ Jesus.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Heb. 1:1-3)

God speaks today through His word… and we can speak to God through prayer… and that process of hearing from God and speaking to God grows and matures the intimacy we have with God in Jesus, which is crucial for overcoming worries and anxieties and fears…

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” (Psa. 94:19)

Paul explains those consolations when he tells the Philippians “do not be anxious about anything” in chapter 4 verse 6. He is not telling them or us to gird our loins, be a stoic or pop a pill, Paul gives us the reasons in the very text why we need not be anxious. In the verse prior, he says “The Lord is near” in the verse following he says “the Lord is listening” and in the following, verse 7, he says “the lord is guarding us with His peace.”

What peace?

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27) In other words, the peace Jesus is speaking about is the opposite of worry and anxiety, it is a calmness of spirit that rests in trusting in the will and providence of God through the provision and power of the Holy spirit who carries us through the trial.

So I guess I want to slow down this desire to be free from all worry, because worries remind us of our need for Jesus… something I need to be reminded of daily. I mean, I would be worried if I ceased to worry because worry is an essential part of what it means to be human, and what it means to be human for Christians, ultimately, is to be in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And oftentimes worry is the catalyst for the journey of maturity and intimacy in that most precious of all relationships.

Second: worries reveal our greatest loves.

Ask yourself this question: would you want to live your entire life without any worries at all?

‘No worries’ … none! That might seem a strange question but think about it… a life lived without worries is an anesthetized life… it’s a detached life of indifference and friends, that’s not human.

You see, worry signals something special about who you are… If you worry at all… then you care… and if you care… it’s because you have an affinity, or an interest or a love in something or someone… now those affinities or interests or loves can be misplaced, of course, but that you and I have them tells us something about what it means to be human. To have ‘no worries’ is to be detached, to ‘worry’ is to be attached… to relate… and to relate is to be human.

Here’s a simple exercise: imagine one of your children, or of you don’t have children one of your parents, has had a scan and it looks like an advanced stage of cancer… the doctor isn’t sure, though, so they’ve ordered some further scans. Would ‘worry’ be an apt description for how you might feel? You see, worry springs from our deepest relations… the more we love, the more we worry. Or change the situation: imagine you’ve got an important presentation that you have to give at work, or at uni, or at school – and you’re worried about presenting well, not being criticized, or rejected. In this case, the cause of worry comes from self-love: we all want approval, to be accepted, to have our hard work recognised and valued.

You see, both of these exercises give us a window into our own heads and hearts. While the fact of worry shoots in the direction of something or someone or some situation about which we are worried, or fearful or anxious, the act of worry shoots back in the direction of you and I, the ‘worriers’, revealing affections, our hopes, our dreams, our relations, our ultimate desire to connect and to love and to be loved.

So, inasmuch as worries remind us of our need for Jesus, they also reveal what or who we love the most… And for the Christian, there is no higher love or desire than Jesus Christ… anything else is idolatry.

Thirdly and finally: worrying provides an opportunity to exercise faith in a deeper dependence on God.

Here’s where it all comes together in a beautiful consolation: worry reminds us of our need for Jesus, and worries reveal our greatest loves… And yet here, even when our greatest worries are realised when our love ends in heart ache and heart break, Christians aren’t left to wallow in worry because the good news of Jesus Christ shines hope like the sun cresting the horizon, giving light and warmth and orientation within even the darkest pits of despair.

It is telling that the etymology of the word “worry” has its origins in the Old High German idea of ‘strangling’? And it’s the same with the word “anxious” in its Latin root angere which means ‘to strangle’? Without release, worry and anxiety can suffocate the life out of us; they can be crippling, whether mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically – both in ourselves and in our effectiveness in the kingdom work God has for us. Certainly, that’s the image we are given in the Parable of the Sower where the thorns and thistles – the worries of life – strangle out and choke the truth and effectiveness of the word of God… or, to a lesser degree, in the example of Martha who was so worried about trivial things she missed the bigger picture concerning Jesus.

We must avoid any sterile Christianity notion that pretends there aren’t real things to be worried about, real things to be fearful of in this world… But recognising this, we must also avoid the suffocation of worries and anxieties by hearing and heeding the words of Jesus.

Did you know that the most repeated negative prohibition Jesus uttered was “Fear not…”? Fear not… Why did He make such point of it? Because Jesus is not a high priest unable to sympathise with our weaknesses – he knows intimately what it is to face fears as a human being, just look at him in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed to the Father that he would take the cup of calvary from him.

But even there we see how Jesus dealt with his worries and anxieties when he prayed “yet father, not my will but yours be done…” Faced with the greatest worry any human in history has ever faced, Jesus laid it all down before God and in that act – which saw Him to the cross of Calvary – Jesus demonstrated what it looks like to live and die with an affinity, an affection, a desire, a love for God more than anything else in this world.

You see, there is a way to be free from worry, but that doesn’t always mean that we won’t get hurt… Worry didn’t get Jesus crucified, faithfulness did… but it was faithfulness that saw him arise from the grave, telling the world once and for all that there are imperishable reasons for responding to the troubles of life in faith, not fear, or worry, or doubt, or anxiety…

You see, being crippled by worries and anxieties can reflect something of a worship disorder in that it fails to recognise the providence of God working in and through our lives. 1 Peter 5:7 says “Cast all your anxiety on him” there’s the imperative to which we are called… “because he cares for us” there’s the promises which is yes and amen.

Friends, faithfulness to God in even the most dire of situations is praiseworthy, because it is a courageous expression of love first and foremost to the will of God and the promises of Jesus which are ‘yes and amen.’

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

Why does Paul tell us this? Because in doing so we must necessarily think of our hope in Christ that aligns us here and now with our created intention and future destiny.