ANXIETY
Anxiety does
not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.
Our
yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost
opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive
anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep,
but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His
hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.
Oh, how great
peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and
place all his confidence in God.
For some
reason, we think of doubt and worry as “small” sins. But when a Christian displays unbelief…or an inability to cope with
life, he is saying to the world, “My God cannot be trusted,” and that kind of
disrespect makes one guilty of a fundamental error, the heinous sin of
dishonoring God. That is no small sin.
The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press, 1983, p.
140.
Worry is the
sin of distrusting the promise and providence of God, and yet it is a sin that
Christians commit perhaps more frequently than any other.
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 419.
Worry is not a trivial sin, because it strikes a blow both at God's love and at
God's integrity. Worry declares our heavenly Father to be untrustworthy in His
Word and His promises. To avow belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and in the
next moment to express worry is to speak out of both sides of our mouths. Worry
shows that we are mastered by our circumstances and by our own finite
perspectives and understanding rather than by God's Word. Worry is therefore
not only debilitating and destructive but maligns and impugns God.
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 425.
The beginning
of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of
anxiety.
Signs of the Times, Christianity Today, v.
35, n. 1.
Worry is the
antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.
Discipline – The Glad Surrender, Revell,
1982, p. 106.
Future worry
is overwhelming. There’s a reason. We don't have grace today for tomorrow. One
of Satan's simplest tricks and most effective devices is to draw our attention
to things we can do nothing about. There’s nothing worse than a crisis that
can’t be fixed. If our hours are spent with thoughts of tomorrow’s problems,
which are not accessible today and which we know we cannot touch with today’s
resources, we are doomed to worry. And worry wears us out… [Yet] our calling is
today. It’s not that we don’t think of tomorrow, but it must consistently be
filed under “future grace.” The tide of confidence in God's sufficiency must
wash out worry. In fact, it’s a command. “Do not be anxious for tomorrow.” To go there is to disobey a
directive from the One who holds every moment in His hand.
Bill Elliff
The Sufficiency of Daily Grace, Christian Communicators
Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
Worry is
faith in the negative; trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster and
belief in defeat. Worry is wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s
opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.
Worry is the
unpleasant assurance of disaster.
Don't worry
about anything, pray about everything.
Author Unknown
Today is the
tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Worry is a
thin stream of fear that trickles through the mind, which, if encouraged, will
cut a channel so wide that all other thoughts will be drained out.
Author Unknown
When you live
to please yourself, circumstances that God designs to teach you to trust and
obey Him instead become temptations for you to fear and worry.
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 19, Page 4,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
What does
your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty
today of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit
to cope with it when it comes. God gives us the power to bear all the sorrow of
His making, but He does not guarantee to give us strength to bear the burdens
of our own making such as worry induces.
All worry is
about tomorrow, whether about food or
clothing or anything else; but all worry is experienced today. Whenever we are anxious, we are upset in the present time about
some event which may happen in the future. However, these fears of ours about tomorrow, which we feel so acutely today, may not be fulfilled. The popular
advice, "Don't worry, it may never happen," is doubtless
unsympathetic, but perfectly true. People worry that they may
not pass an exam, or find a job, or get married, or retain their health, or
succeed in some enterprise. But it is all fantasy. “Fears may be liars;”
they often are. Most worries…never materialize.
John Stott
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p.
168-169.
A Christian’s
freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to
the folly of worry...and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffering is within the orbit of
His care.
John Stott
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, IVP, 1978, p.
167-168.
Worry, like a
rocking chair, will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take
hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
Anxiety
is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. In a
world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be
blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can it
alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?
Tryon
Edwards
The great
antidote to anxiety is to come to God in prayer. We are to pray about everything.
Nothing is too big for Him to handle, and nothing is too small to escape
His attention.
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p.
159. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.