Fighting Future-Tense Fear

A common theme that has shown up in my conversations and thoughts recently is fear and anxiety – specifically, regarding the future.  In the spirit of transparency, I confess that I have been wrestling with my own “futuristic angst”.  For the majority its been concerning the future of the Church and my family's future as well. I have been trying to fight against this anxiety with the Truth as we are told to do in Scripture (easier said than done).  When I am anxious, the first Scripture that comes to mind is Matthew 6:25-34.

“(25)Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?(26) Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?(27) And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?(28) And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,(29) yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (30) But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?(31) Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’(32) For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.(33) But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.(34) Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Now, what I have typically done in the past is read through the passage, gain some perspective, get to the promise in verse 33, and stop there.  It’s easy, at least for me, to kind of forget about verse 34.  But this time the Lord made sure I paid attention, and used it to speak to me right where I was.  I mean, how often are our fears expressed in the future tense:  How are we going to pay the bills?  What about retirement?  Is our relationship going to survive this?  Are my kids going to grow up to be delinquents?  What am I going to do with my life?  Etc.

If we are honest, nerve-wracking questions like these have run through each and every one of our minds.  Christ very simply answers them by saying, “Don’t worry about it; you need to focus on where you are now.  Enjoy today, endure your current battles and rely on me for the grace and strength to get though them.  Trust me with the future and depend on me in the present.”

The Lord then coupled that with Acts 1:7-8, where Christ tells the disciples right before He ascends into heaven:  

“It’s not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

There were three things that I gleaned from this passage concerning future tense anxiety.  For those of you who are or will struggle with anxiety (which is everyone), I think these will be helpful.

1.  It’s not our place to know.  As much as each and every one of us would like to know the details of our future, it’s just not our place to know.  Horoscopes and fortune tellers stay in business because of mankind’s desire to know the future, but we just need to accept the fact that we aren’t supposed to know.

2.  The future is fixed by God’s authority.  I know that, especially as Americans, we find this disturbing.  We are culturally conditioned to believe as individuals “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”, as William Ernest Henley puts it in his poem, Invictus[S1] .  This unveils the true source of ALL anxiety and fear, not just about the future:  our distrust that God is truly good.  We can say the phrase, “God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good”, to the point where we sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.  But the Word of God makes it very clear that God authoritatively orchestrates our lives.  The script was written before the foundation of the earth.  I realize that this may be a controversial topic in the Church today, but if we really look at Scripture with the ultimate objective of bringing glory to God, there can be little dispute when it comes to the extent of His Lordship.  The only question is do we trust him?  

3.  We are given a sufficient power source.  When the time comes that we have to deal with our destiny, we will be given sufficient power through the Holy Spirit and more than enough grace through Christ to cope.  If we just focus on the present, we can trust that although life may push us beyond our limits, we will never be pushed beyond God’s ability to empower us.

In conclusion:  anxiety and fear go hand and hand with the human experience, but, the more we trust God with the future and depend on Him in the present, the more rest, joy and overall fulfillment we experience in Christ during this life.  I know I may still be what some may call a “young buck”, but I’ve lived long enough to be able to identify the difference between the seasons where I am in the moment, dependent on Christ, and trusting the future to God’s Lordship, and the times when I am crushed by the compounding burden of my fearful distrust in God’s goodness concerning the future, while trying to live my present life according to my own logic and strength.

A sermon I would highly recommend if you are someone battling with anxiety or even if you’re not, is Sanctification:  Examining Fear and Anxiety by Matt Chandler.  Check it out on YouTube and invest the 46 minutes and 51 seconds (to be exact).  I know it really helped me to gain fresh perspective and a much needed reload of Truth for my own battle with future tense fear.