Unbiblical Pithy Expression
For seven years, Esther Black King wrote an article titled Think on These Things for the Leader-News in El Campo, Texas. One of her articles pointed out that she had been taught that everyone is destined to have problems: Everyone worries about something. She began questioning that adage. She wondered if the act of worrying were simply an issue of perspective and nothing more.
King wondered about her personal worries. The car was in the shop, so no way to get to the grocery store, thus, dinner would be leftovers. There were clothes and rags to be washed, but no soap. It struck her that these problems were really just inconveniences.
She pondered the idea of perspective. The woman dealing with a husband afflicted with Alzheimer is justifiably worried; the single dad diagnosed with terminal cancer legitimately concerned. Realizing perspective was critical to worrying she decided to modify her worry-habit. When she sat down to her next meal comprised of leftover ham, canned beans, and paper napkins, she found that such a simple dinner never tasted so good. I think King understood that worry could be instructive or destructive, depending on the perspective.
Carbonell (2016) writes that there is no off-switch in the human brain to simply cancel worry. Apparently, attempting to ignore worry is a fruitless endeavor. Its hooks remain in your subconscious no matter your efforts. Notwithstanding, can we distinguish between instructive and destructive worry?
When Smith (2011) writes that worry provides God’s children with the opportunity to be still and listen, is he speaking of all types of worry? Smith goes on to write that when we worry “God is doing the work of transforming our lives and beckoning us to not stay as we are” (p. 88). Smith’s point is that the human cognitive emotion of worry is an ample opportunity to strengthen one’s faith.
It is a hard fact of Biblical explanation that there is a type of worry that does not appear without man's intervention (Job 4:8; 5:6-7) and it doesn’t seem to strengthen one’s faith. Nurtured by human intervention this type of worry garners unavoidable consequence. It is a type of worrying where trouble springs from the ground because the soil was purposely prepared for a specific seed of man’s choosing, not God’s choosing. This type of worry is polluted by man’s purpose from the start; thus, destructive.
What is this destructive type of worry? A popular and unbiblical aphorism in Christian circles provides the answer.
Trust God to help you do your best, and then trust Him to do the rest.
Unfortunately, many Christians believe this expression of faith is an aphorism; that it contains a general truth. It does not. Along the spectrum of your best, when do you expect God to start doing the rest? When do you want God to step in? If God is not at the beginning of your endeavors, only you fertilize the soil. Only you choose the seed to plant. Essentially, you pollute the soil and expect roses instead of weeds. Applying this aphorism in life leads to the type of worry that hinders faith. I.e., you expect God to step in at the time of your choosing and make things go your way. After all, you first did your best and only then expected God to do the rest. Essentially, it is your will, not God’s.
I am not a Joyce Meyer fan, as I believe that she sometimes takes Biblical scripture out of context; still, I know she benefits many, including my wife. My wife regularly receives books and CDs full of sermons from Meyer. Since I believe that I can learn from everyone and everything, I periodically read Meyer’s books and always learn something. Joyce, thank you! In one of her books, Unshakeable Trust, Meyer (2017) captures the thrust of this article when she writes:
One of the ways we can discern that we are truly trusting
God, rather than merely trying to trust Him, is whether or not
our souls are resting in God’s faithfulness. (p. 2)
Meyer makes a good point and prompts a poignant question—do I trust in God’s faithfulness from the start? Counterintuitive to the quote above, she also aligns herself with "...letting God do the rest" (Meyer, 2017, p. 11). Is this really any different from the flawed maxim that God helps those who help themselves? It is clear the Bible shuns such a maxim (Jer 17:5; Prov 3:5-6; 28:26; 118:8). When we first rely on our best and then expect God to do the rest, we glorify ourselves from the start; we are not putting our trust in God from the start; we do not rest on God’s faithfulness.
Our greatest example of letting God lead from the start is Matthew 26:39. Worried, Jesus asked for a different start, but finished His prayer with, "Yet not as I will, but as you will."
The act of worrying is not wrong. It is an opportunity to grow as a child of God; it is an opportunity to present our concerns to God and rest in God’s care. When you rely on God from the beginning you present an opportunity to grow your faith while ensuring your desire is to trust God’s faithfulness from the start, not in the middle or three quarters through.
Carbonell, D. A. (2016). The worry trick: How your brain tricks you brain
tricks you into expecting the worst and what you can do about it.
Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
King, E. B. (2011). Think on these things. Bloomington, IN: Trafford.
Meyer, J. (2017). Unshakeable trust: Find the joy of trusting God at all
times, in all things. Nashville, TN: Faith Words.
Smith, R. (2011). The anxious Christian: Can God use your anxiety for
good? Chicago, IL: Moody Press.