Anxiety is a crazy thing. I talked about it briefly in “Stress: It Happens In the Mind.” Casting all our anxiety on God isn’t easy. Anxiety has roots in the mind and also shows itself in the physical body. As I went back the doctors yesterday for a follow up visit, I felt anxiety just from getting my blood pressure taken. I’ve had quite a few friends tell me they are the same way. And there is a medical term for it, but how can a person get over it or truly cast it all on God, getting past both the physical and the mental aspect of anxiety? That’s the question we want a quick answer to. Though, I have a feeling there isn’t a quick one.
One of the things I have to acknowledge is the difference between “can’t” and “don’t want to.” “Can’t” says to me that it is something beyond my physical capability to do. “Don’t want to” says to me that it is something I physically have the capability for, but choose not to. It’s like how we teach our kids the difference between “need” and “want.” For example, I remember getting physically stressed when I worked construction a few years ago. I had just graduated graduate theology school and found myself working in construction rather than a vocational ministry position. I did that 4 to 5 years. I didn’t know how to do construction and I didn’t really like it. My boss would try to teach me things and say “this isn’t difficult.” But the truth is, I didn’t want to learn. I saw construction as standing in my way of getting into the ministry. I resented the construction work. It really had less to do with “I can’t” and more to do with “I don’t want to.”
Maybe I was afraid that I would like it too much and become one of those ministers who dropped out of the ministry? I didn’t want to be known as the construction guy. I wanted to be known as a person helping people spiritually. I saw this re-merge when I was given the lead on organizing and doing a bunch of the construction projects at our church during our “Servolution” week a couple of weeks ago. And now, we’re back to the whole pride issue. James 4:1-5 is such a go-to passage in this whole thing:
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? (NIV)
We hear this thought all the time and we use it more than we think, in little things and big things. I hear many people using “can’t” in the church. I “can’t” make it to church that early. Really? Church isn’t until 10:30 am! We get ready for work and get the kids ready for school by 8:30am, five days a week. I “can’t” volunteer to reach kids for Christ, I don’t know enough about the bible. You don’t have to worry about that, we provide all the curriculum to make it successful. I “can’t” give any money to further the ministry of the church. Really? We spend money on coffees, on shopping and hundred of dollars to amuse ourselves and our kids every month. I “can’t”…
I’m not trying to bust on church people and it’s evident that I’m guilty as the next person. Hear me out. When we say we “can’t,” we have to know that it really is an issue between us and God. We want something and the Spirit that lives within us wants something for us too. It’s a problem when those wants are different. We have to be honest with ourselves and ask, “is it really because I can’t or is it because I don’t want to”? More times than not, it probably has a few “don’t want to”s all tied up in it.
And so I’ve been asking myself, “why is it that I don’t want to get my blood pressure taken?” “Why is it that I don’t like the doctors and hospitals?” “What is it that I’m truly afraid of?” What is the “I don’t want to” that causes the stress to build up and my physical body to respond with “can’t”?
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These insights are profound… and kind-of hard to face. I was immediately intruiged by your title. This is an issue I wrestle with a lot, particular in my career as a special education teacher. In dealing with kids with emotional disabalities, it's become really clear to me that the question, "What can they do? What do they simply not want to do?" Is the most difficult and important question I can ask.
The distinction between "can't" and "don't want to", much like (as you point out) the distinction between "need" and "want" is an important one… But it only works clear and easy on paper. In reality these distinctions are so very messy… partially because there are so many things that we can't do because we believe we can't; there are so many things that we theoretically shouldn't be able to do and yet we pull them off when we're truly comitted, and we serve a God who is quite capeable of doing the impossible through us.
Thanks for the great thoughts. Lots to chew on here.
so right Jeff. that's why it's not easy. anxiety is more than a mind issue (but it is a mind issue as well), because even if we were able to create a new way of thinking and believing, our physical body might not be there yet or ever be. but praise God for His grace like you said.
5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? (NIV)
I don't understand the above.
Thanks for asking Gerard. sorry to get back with you so late. The verse highlights this truth we find in other places how God and our selfish nature are fighting for our attention, affection and our appetite so to speak. God is a jealous God in the sense that He pursues us for our undivided attention. God is not comfortable in letting us live a life half-hearted for Him or even opposed to Him. When we choose to live for what we want versus for what God wants in our lives, we put ourselves against what God wants. This passage calls us enemies of God because we are in a sense completely rebelling, opposing His ways and throwing a stink in doing so. I'd suggest looking up the idea of God as a jealous God and see what you find.