A Mouth Full of Thanksgiving

 A children's story I read long ago  by Charles Verral had an episode within where several youngsters were involved in a spat and were forced to sit together and eat ice cream by an adult.  As tempers settled, it was remarked about one of the characters, "She didn't want to agree, but she was finding it hard to stay mad with a mouth full of ice cream."  It seems there is something pacifying about the creamy smoothness of ice cream that blunts the sharpness of our agitation.  As we focus on the good, we lose our preoccupation with the bad.

One of the most difficult things to deal with when faced with real or possible sufferings is the anxiety and worry they induce.  All of us have had to deal with worrying at some point, and while people gifted with eternally sunny dispositions may be able to conceal their anxieties, it is a struggle for many of us to keep them from taking over.  In fact, the worrying may cause more distress than the actual suffering or consequences which we anticipate.  I have seen many people crippled by worrying.  I myself am prone to it.  Our lesson in church this morning from Philippians suggested a further study of Paul's instructions for dealing with this.   

Many in the Christian community would suggest that worrying is a sin in and of itself.  It represents a lack of faith in God and His providence.  In his second letter to Timothy, Paul stated, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (II Tim 1:7).  Since God does not give us a spirit of fear, to be fearful means to disbelieve Him.  Or conversely we do not have a sound mind.  Clearly then, the worrier has a defective faith or defective mind.

Sometimes we are simply told to stop worrying or stop being afraid.  It is indeed true that we can exercise control over what we think about and how we feel about things.  The Christian should not be a slave to his thoughts or feelings.  But to suggest that we should all have immediate and total control over these things may be unrealistic.  For some, it takes a lifetime to master the firing of nervous impulses throughout the neurons of our brains.  It is somewhat like trying to lasso electricity itself. 

Probably the best author I have ever read on dealing with such problems was D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and he deals with worry and anxiety in his book, "Spiritual Depression."  Before telling you his advice, let us look at Philippians 4:6-7, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Yes, there is a command there, "Be anxious for nothing."  And as we discussed before, if we are disobedient to God we are sinning, so if we are anxious for anything we have not followed God's instructions. How many of us are never anxious about anything?  God would not give us a requirement without a way to carry it out.  He does not give commands which cannot be followed.  He would not tell us to float four feet off of the ground by sheer willpower. 

I believe Lloyd-Jones gives us the secret.  He says you cannot just, "stop worrying."  You cannot just slap yourself in the face and say, "Get over it!  Pull yourself together!"  We are to approach God in worship.  We are not to rush into prayer with our requests for this awful thing we are facing to be taken away, or for God to immediately stop our anxiety.  We should enter into His presence humbly, even forgetting our problems for the moment.  We should worship Him.  And then we should give thanks. 

As Paul says above, "with thanksgiving."  As Lloyd-Jones says, "If we go on our knees feeling that God is against us, we may as well get up and go out."  We must ask, "What can I thank God for?"  To quote further:

I may be in trouble at the moment, but I can thank God for my salvation and that  He has sent His Son to die on the cross for me and for my sins.  There is a terrible problem facing me, I know, but He has done that for me.  I thank God that He sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into the world.  I will thank Him for rising again for my justification.  I will pour out my heart in thanksgiving for that.  I will thank Him for the many blessings I have received in the past.

What God promises us if we do that is His peace.  Lloyd-Jones is careful to say that we do not give ourselves that peace but that it is a gift from God in return for our taking our worries to Him in this fashion.  The real key here is thanksgiving.  Just as our little girl in the story above found it hard to stay mad with ice cream in her mouth, it is hard for us to stay worried and anxious when there is thanksgiving in our hearts.  I can attest to times of great turbulence and difficulty in my life, when all seemed beyond hope, when it would have been easy to succumb to worry and anxiety and fear.  In days gone by, I would have appealed to God to remedy my situation immediately.  Now I first go to Him and give thanks, and in return He gives me peace.  It is easy to come up with an endless list of things for which to be thankful.

So why not try what God says for a change?  Worries and anxieties are a daily event for many.  It shouldn't take long for the next opportunity to put this into play.  The next time you feel overwhelmed by worry, simply stop what you are doing, prayerfully enter into the Lord's presence, and give thanks.  Thank Him for your salvation, for the gift of His Son, and all of His other blessings.  You can even thank Him in the midst of your trial for the opportunity to strengthen your faith.  I think that you will find that as you stop and give thanks, the anxiety will be replaced by peace.  How can God work such a magnificent change?  Well don't ask me.  He said it "surpasses all understanding."