“Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” – Isaiah 35:4
I don’t know about you, but I am a worrier.
I worry about the future, and I rehash the past. I get nervous when I meet new people, and I fret about what others think of me. I worry about the well-being of my loved ones and lament the countless troubles in our culture.
I get anxious about making ends meet and stressed out about everything I have to get done. I’m afraid of saying something that will offend others, and I’m scared that my best won’t be enough.
At the root of all this worry is a lot of nasty pride. Worriers like me wrongly assume that we are in control. We arrogantly believe that “everything depends on me”. It is simply not true. We must come back down to reality. So many aspects of life are beyond our control. We are truly precious in God’s eyes, but we are also utterly powerless without Him.
As the Psalmist says, the days of man “are like grass; he blossoms like a flower in the field. A wind sweeps over it and it is gone; its place knows it no more”. Compare that with the very next line: “the LORD’s mercy is from age to age…” (Ps. 103:15-17). We who worry usually have very little faith in the everlasting wisdom and providence of God. We often doubt that the Lord truly loves us and is working for our best interests.
In a talk entitled “Trust in the Lord”, available through Lighthouse Catholic Media, Fr. Thomas Richter says that such anxiety is analogous to a 4-year-old child tossing and turning all night because he’s worried about paying the bills. Kids don’t need to worry about that, because their parents take care of such things. We must trust that God is a good parent and that He will take care of us if we let Him.
As Christians we know that God has saved His people over and over again throughout history. “God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid” (Isaiah 12:2). We believe that He actively works to save us right now, and we hope in the promise of being saved in the future by virtue of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
So, our task is simple. We must surrender our desire for control and acknowledge our need for a Savior. We must cooperate with His grace and allow it to transform us. If we do, freedom will replace our fear and worry will be driven away by the wonder of God’s glory and love.
Save us, Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free! Amen.