Breaking Anxiety's Grip By Michelle BengtsonSample

Day Two

A Thief in the Night

Scripture: Matthew 6:25–34

They stepped in like a thief in the night and stole from me, and stole from my family. 

Things were going well, and then it happened—“it” being worry, anxiety, and fear. Almost like I’d given them a key to my front door, worry, anxiety, and fear let themselves in without even asking. 

Actually, I did give them permission. I listened to them, entertained them, agreed with them, and let them stay. But in gaining entrance to my mind and heart, worry stole my joy. Anxiety stole my peace. Fear stole my present as it projected into my future. And all these things stole from my family because I couldn’t be truly present with them when I was worried about the past or the future. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs us not to worry (Matthew 6:25–34). He puts his finger on our chief anxiety: How will I be provided for tomorrow? 

We expend mental energy attempting to answer this question. We try to find a solution to each of the worries that may not even happen. Yet none of the "what-ifs" can be acted on because the calamitous events that we construct in our minds haven’t occurred. So we sit and brood, waiting for the worst to happen.

Jesus’s counter to this is our heavenly Father, the Author of life and the Creator of each individual, who knows our needs and desires. He instructs us to seek relationship with our Father first, and then all other things will fall into a proper perspective. 

Jesus ends His sermon with a couple wry observations. He states that tomorrow will worry about its own things, so we shouldn’t worry about them now. We are not at tomorrow yet! We should take care of what we need to do today, but we shouldn’t be concerned about what tomorrow will bring. God is at tomorrow; we are not.

The one fundamental thing that God asks from us is that we believe, that we trust Him. We tend to approach life thinking, Show me, then I’ll trust you, but God tells us to trust Him, and then He’ll show us. 

Father, help me to trust You more, prepare, and wait on You for the harvest of peace that You desire for me. Reveal to me the lies I have believed and how to counter them with Your truth. In Jesus’s name, amen.