The writer of Proverbs proposes, “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all.”
I used The Message translation today because a traditional reading of these verses is so familiar. We might hear The Message more personally in contemporary language. How does this verse help us know what it means to trust God? Have you had a recent personal experience of being led by God?
Trust enables an increasing capacity to “see” the work of God in us and around us and in one another.
Does it often seem that anxiety gets in the way of our trusting God? Anxiety makes the pathway to trust difficult.
Anxiety seems to be where I find myself of late so this may be a sermon more for me than for you. I chose today’s scriptures because I’m not addressing my own anxiety very effectively. It’s the kind of anxiety that keeps us awake at night. It’s the kind of anxiety that co-ops our best thoughts and intentions. It’s the kind of anxiety that destroys relationships.
Anxiety seems to be where I find myself of late so this may be a sermon more for me than for you. I chose today’s scriptures because I’m not addressing my own anxiety very effectively. It’s the kind of anxiety that keeps us awake at night. It’s the kind of anxiety that co-ops our best thoughts and intentions. It’s the kind of anxiety that destroys relationships.
Anxiety seduces us to try to live life under our own understanding. We believe we should be resourceful and competent people that live life like we are in charge. That attitude undermines our trust in the Lord. What causes you anxiety?
“Do not worry about anything,” today’s scripture from Philippians directs. If we were reading that verse in the New International Version, it would say, “Have no anxiety about anything” and in the New American Standard, “Be anxious for nothing.”
We know Paul was addressing a conflict in the church between two women, Euodia and Syntyche. Yet, Paul doesn’t chastise them, but instead prays for them, and for the Philippians to work with them. Paul affirms that these women had been faithful partners in establishing the church, the first one that had been established before Paul made it to visit and to assist in its beginning.
Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi offers antidotes to living with conflict and anxiety. Paul knew that even conflict between two people could affect the whole group of believers.
Paul talks about rejoicing and then gentleness before he even gets to being anxious or worrying. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”
Rejoice in the Lord always, writes Paul. It sounds so simple. Rejoicing and gentleness get us outside ourselves. When we are called to rejoice, we see where God is already at work within ourselves and in others. Rejoicing is a response to God’s love and the gift of life. Gentleness has to do with how we treat one another. When we rejoice we lift up one another so that we can be attentive to God’s love above our own worry and anxiety. Another understanding of the word gentleness is reasonableness. Let your reasonableness be evident. When I am honest with myself and my motives, that changes how I interact with others. It gives me the power to be gentle or reasonable with others even when that may be the furthest thing from our mind. Rejoicing moves us outside ourselves.
Paul’s encouragement continues, “Do not worry about anything.” Paul was sitting in prison writing to a church that was in danger of being divided with conflict. When Paul wrote these words he had good reason to be anxious about everything. But, he gives us a strategy: “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
So anxiety is tucked in between the antidotes that include rejoicing, gentleness, prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. Prayer is not the ending point; it is not something we do as a last resort or when all else fails. We all know how difficult it is to pray when our minds are wracked with worry or bitterness. Paul continues to encourage us to pray with thanksgiving because when we are worried or anxious our focus shifts.
Frederick Buechner writes that Paul simply tells the Philippians that in spite of their difficulties–” even in the thick of them–they are to keep in constant touch with the One who unimaginably transcends the worst things as the One also unimaginably transcends the best.” We open ourselves to the possibility of joy in knowing that the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds.
Last week, our congregational conversation revealed anxiety, anger and frustration that was palatable and uncomfortable for everyone. Our challenge is to not stay there and that will take the work of all of us. Paul’s letter in Philippians and the verses we read from Proverbs offer us active ways to live out our trust in someone beyond ourselves. We are going to be pretty busy.
I heard the phrase “bearable ordinary” that seems to help here. Trust and hope may seem a stretch for some of us at this moment. The idea of “bearable ordinary” means we do the ordinary things because that is what we can manage. Right now, I can manage simple prayer, even if it means sitting silently in God’s presence because I don’t know what to say. I can’t manage the anxiety which feels overwhelming, but I can manage gentleness when I treat others kindly. Paul writes that these simple actions will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
To trust, ultimately, means that we believe we are in the hands of a merciful God who loves us. Therefore, we are enabled to act in hope, even when the circumstances don’t look hopeful from a practical point of view. But we carry forward and try to extend that mercy to other people we come in contact with.
May we have the audacity to trust with our hands wide open to what God has for us next: To be changed, to be wrong, to keep learning and ask questions, to be surprised, to reimagine what life and the church should look like now. And that sounds like resurrection to me. Thanks be to God.