Faith, Fear, Failure, Favor: Part 3

How do you fight anxiety? The root of anxiety is a lack of trust in God’s desire and ability to care for you. Getting free from anxiety means learning to rest in knowing that God knows what He is doing even when we don’t know what He is doing.

If you have ever had surgery you have a good picture of what I mean. You have to completely trust in the wisdom and intent of the physician doing the surgery. You are going to be asleep. You will have no way to personally check what is being done. If you don’t trust the doctor, you won’t go through with it no matter how necessary the surgery might be. You will keep looking for a doctor that you trust has the knowledge and experience in order to do the job.

God is the Great Physician. He has promised to be good to us. The question is do we trust Him? When we don’t have all the answers we would like, because of God’s sovereign faithfulness we can say with confidence, “I can rest in not knowing because I know He knows.”

You don’t need to be anxious because God cares for you. You are important to Him! The Church is important to Him! It is the bride of His Son! When we have needs, we can feel free to bring them to Him. We have his promise that He will listen to us and that He will provide all we need.

Ironically, the way God wants us to counter anxiety about the future is to remember what He has done in the past. It is no mistake that one of God’s commands to the Israelites during the first Passover before He brought them out of Egypt was Exodus 13:8-9, On the seventh day you must explain to your children, ‘I am celebrating what the LORD did for me when I left Egypt.’ This annual festival will be a visible sign to you, like a mark branded on your hand or your forehead. Let it remind you always to recite this teaching of the LORD: ‘With a strong hand, the LORD rescued you from Egypt.’ He wants us to be learning that the best way to build faith and trust in His promises for the future is to keep fresh in mind His faithfulness in keeping those promises in the past.

In trying to keep this command myself, I wear a ring that says “remember me” in Hebrew. That is the main point of Deuteronomy chapter 8. “Don’t forget who brought you here. Don’t forget who gave you all that you have and the ability to have more. Don’t forget what I have done for you. Remember Me.” Whenever I see that ring, I remember. Having that reminder on my hand every day has gone a long way in helping me walk away from the trap of anxiety.

Remembering what God has done creates the foundation for a defense against anxiety. The next step is in remembering God’s promises to take care of you. Promises like Isaiah 35:4 (ESV), Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

And Philippians 4:6-7, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

And 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV), Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

How do you fight fear of failure? The fear of failure is rooted in a lack of trust in God’s desire and ability to use you.

You need to remember that God’s love, joy, and commitment to you are in no way based on your successes, and are in no way compromised by your failures. You are accepted because of Jesus Christ. Not because of anything you have done or not done. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes this very clear, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. It doesn’t matter how good you are or how many successes you’ve had. That’s not why God loves you.

That is one of the most important lessons that our failures can teach us: there is nothing in us that deserves God’s favor. Our failures help us grow a real humility and an honest assessment of ourselves before God. Failure helps us to acknowledge our weakness and helplessness. We become convinced of how much we need God because we are so prone to failure. Failure brings us to God and puts us in a position to let God work in our lives in such a way as to make us realize that He gets all the glory.

It has to be by grace. God’s grace and faithfulness are not given to you because you earned it. They are given because God made a promise to be committed to you because of His commitment to Christ.

God has promised to be faithful to you so there is no need to fear failure. The reason we don’t need to be afraid of failure is because our sovereign God has promised to be faithful to us. Look at how God addresses our fear. He says in Deuteronomy 31:6, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. He says in Lamentations 3:22-23, Because of the LORD’S great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. And in 1 Corinthians 1:8-9 God says, He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful (emphasis mine).

Peter’s faith in Jesus made him trust that Jesus would enable him to come to Him by walking on the water. When Peter’s fear overcame his trust in Jesus, he failed in his water-walk and began to sink. Jesus’ response to Peter’s failure and cry for help was favor. By grace, God uses us in spite of our failures, not because we are free from failures. We need to understand that God sovereignly works through our weaknesses and even our helplessness to accomplish the work He has given us to do. You do not have to worry about losing God’s love because of your failures. Jesus’ love for Peter and desire to use Him were not changed by his failure to keep walking on the water. And you are no different than Peter.

God is not expecting us to do, or become, or save in our own strength. God assures us that no matter how big the task, how bleak the circumstances, or how useless we feel, the Holy Spirit is going to work through us so that we will do everything the Father has planned for us to do. Our confidence comes from God’s abilities, God’s resources, and God’s strength, not ours.

Can I be straight with you? The reason that the command “do not be afraid” is the most often repeated command in the Bible is because we need to hear it that often. Let me tell you why I believe that is true.

God’s plan for you includes bringing you into places where you quickly realize that you don’t have what it takes: you don’t have the resources, the confidence, the man power, or the finances. He does this because God wants you to see how trustworthy and faithful He is. God is not interested in making us feel capable. He is interested in helping us see that He is capable.

I have been learning that life comes down to two lessons:

1. I am not enough, and I was never meant to be enough.
2. Jesus is enough, and in Him and through Him I will always have enough.

The only way God can get you learning that you are not enough is by bringing you to places where it becomes apparent—even painfully apparent—that you are not enough. And that is going to produce fear. You are never going to be rid of fear. Not this side of heaven anyway. The question is what are you going to do with it? How are you going to respond to it? Are you going to listen to the cry of fear, or to the call of faith? Faith realizes that you are not enough. And that the only way to know that Jesus is enough is for Him to bring you to places where He can show you that He alone is always enough.