“Am i ok?” “Will i be alright?” We are often so, so worried about our own welfare. i believe we spend untold hours being concerned if our money will work out, if our health will hold up, if we’ll lose our minds, if the economy will continue to allow us to live such convenient lives, if the car will make it another week, if this, if that, round and round, till you can see the whites of our eyes in the dark.
Our state of well being is constantly attacked by satan and all his buddies, who love to inspire us to run around in terror about what “might” happen. Remember, this is the enemy of our soul, the very ones whose will is fully set against us, thrilling to our demise in anyway it can be devised. Listen to God, not the downward spiral of the world.
Ok, so … what if you die? Well, then i reckon you won’t have to worry about things anymore, trusting God won’t be an issue then, because all things will be said and done. What if you don’t die? That’s an odd one, but i’ve heard it from addicts in jail who have a secret death wish, thinking if they do more dope, maybe they’ll die and won’t have to keep being miserable. i’ve actually heard a frequently incarcerated felon say that. Gosh, what a morbid, ultimate victim thing to think. When i heard that, i thought two things simultaneously. First was a quote from Graham Greene: “We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.” And the second was how, despairing, this person has bought into the territory of lies without a return ticket, finding themselves, literally, at the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. All they see is themselves, constantly being an inch from the end, in so much pain, seeing no other way out but to end it can be found. i find it interesting, the person was also a heavy drug users, which i call that level of addiction, “death on the installment plan”, suffering every inch of the way to the end. i take it then, they didn’t actually want to die, which is why they were taking their time getting there, they simply wanted the pain to end.
God says being at the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure isn’t the end. He says there exists, for everyone, the extreme polar opposite…there is life to be had in Christ. Again, let us take to heart that in God’s economy, there is nothing SO dead, He can’t grow life from it.
Everyone must die, one way or another, that’s a given, but God says we don’t also have to die sick and sad. We worry, !worry! over our welfare to the point we make ourselves ill. ?Will i be ok? If we read the myriad of medical advertisements, the implication is if you do what you are told by some medical professional, you’ll be ok, yet, truthfully, it doesn’t always work out like that. i suppose it also depends on our idea of “well-being” too. If your bills were paid, then would you be ok? If you simply weren’t sick, then would you be ok? What will it take to make you “Ok”?
In John 4:42, upon meeting Jesus, the people of Samaria told the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” Where the English word “believe” is, the Greek word translated as “believe” yields a much more comprehensive meaning, in this case meaning, by implication, they entrusted their spiritual well-being to Christ. They were convinced, gave assent to, and relied on God to take care of them. That is God’s idea of what it is to “believe”. Remember, Faith is a noun, and “believe” is the action verb derivative of Faith. Get it? Action.
In Mark 9:24, when the father of the child cried out, “i believe; help my unbelief!”, he was speaking to Jesus and was confessing openly that, although he gave assent to the Lord and relied on God to take care of them, for his child to be made whole, not just no longer sick, but made whole, was just beyond his capability. i believe the man looked into himself and saw not only trust, but also that he didn’t trust the Lord as much as he thought. He realized his state of cognitive dissonance. The idea his child could be made whole was simply beyond his imagination to grasp. Instead of making a dishonest face, smiling his most pious smile, saying with great benevolence, “Praise God, everything is fine, just fine.”, he told the truth and asked the Lord for help.
Do we only believe God when things are well? Or when things aren’t well with us, do we resign ourselves to suffer and die because somewhere along the line, someone we respected told us the cause of our suffering was because we didn’t have enough faith or there was sin in our lives? That is a performance mentality, and the truth is, God doesn’t work that way. You can’t run fast enough, or be good enough to deserve well being. Sure, if we don’t pray, don’t read the Bible, and don’t actually connect with other believers, the possibilities of our well being are narrowed considerably. But truly, our well being is God’s domain, and to sit around, harboring the secret worry of “Will i be ok?” to the point of validating the saying, “worry yourself sick”, well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Rather than worrying about our well being, it would be more profitable to simply be honest, pursuing the Lord to help our unbelief, regardless of our circumstances. Trust God, regardless of your discomfort and trouble. It CAN be done. Learn to live well where you are until the Lord changes the situation.
Don’t do the “yea, but, yea but” thing. Embrace the Lord’s promise of well being, and let Him do it. i didn’t say now, be slack and do nothing, that is twisting the intent here. Matthew 13:12 says, “For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away”, OR, the more you go right, the more you go right, and the more you go left, the more you go left, OR, cutting to the chase here, the longer you do nothing, the longer you do nothing until nothing is all you do. Take action! Trust Him, tell Him about it, i guarantee He’ll solve the conflicts which prevent you from moving forward. You will indeed be ok.
What do you think?