It happens to us all. We find ourselves wide-awake at some
unholy hour of the night or seized by a sudden panic in the middle of an
otherwise great day. Our minds go wild and we are unable to stop agonizing over
strange and often-improbable issues. The details of fear-fests vary from
person-to-person and situation-to situation but at the center of all of them is
one culprit: what-if. The following list is a peek into some of my own (clearly
neurotic) what-ifs (please don’t judge).
What-if…
I die before our
kids grow-up?
Someone breaks into
the house while we’re sleeping?
My boss/best friend/husband
suddenly decides he/she hates me?
My identity is stolen?
I forgot to pay the
Visa bill?
I ruin my life with
bad choices that SEEM like good choices at the time?
My kids grow-up to
be bad people?
I’m disabled or
disfigured in a horrible accident?
A snake crawls in
the house? (We live in Arizona, it happens)
What-ifs are not always harmless. The anxieties triggered by
what-ifs can cause us to lose focus and miss out on the truly beautiful moments
in life. What-ifs rob us of peace and distract us from our purpose. The fear
and insecurity that what-ifs generate can lure us into attempting to do things
our own way, rather than God’s way.
Our way inevitably tempts
us to lean on worldly wisdom, as with Sarah in Genesis chapter 16. Sarah’s anxiety
over her inability to produce an heir led her to demand that her slave Hagar
become a surrogate in order to produce an heir for Abraham. The whole sordid
affair was an ugly, tragic disaster from the beginning. And sadly, our world is
still reeling from the fallout of that one little piece of worldly wisdom
thousands of years after the fact.
What-ifs are not always as entirely evil or illogical as they
sometimes seem. If they are managed correctly some what-ifs serve a valuable
purpose. What-ifs remind us to control the things we can and should be controlling.
The book of Proverbs wisely reminds God’s people that…
The prudent see danger and take refuge,
but the simple keep going and pay the penalty~ Proverbs 22:3
Exercising dominion over the daily issues that we should
control like locking our doors, maintaining healthy relationships, wise money
management, teaching our kids right from wrong, using seatbelts, and shredding
junk mail help to prevent future trouble and heartache. Attentiveness in these
areas gives us less to worry about in general, and goes a long way in keeping
the nighttime fear-fests at bay.
Once we get a handle on the issues we do have a measure of control
over, things get a little trickier from a spiritual perspective. Then we have
to deal with the issue at the heart of what keeps us up at night: fear. Fear of
the future, fear of losing control, fear of the unfamiliar, and—most of all—fear
of not having our life and the lives of those we love work out the way we think it ought to.
Disease, job loss, death, fender benders, other folks’ choices,
the economy, and rattle snakes in the yard all remind us on a regular basis
that control is an illusion in our world. Trusting God when it feels as if we
are walking alone through a dark place is easier said than done, but necessary
if we wish to grow spiritually and keep our sanity intact.
Trust begins with the fervent conviction that God meant what
He said in Romans 8:28:
And
we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who
have been called according to his purpose.
Only an idiot would say that all things in this world are
good. Sin has left its mark on every aspect of creation. Even the redeemed feel
the sting of its effects. But that does
not mean that God is not or good or that He is asleep at the wheel or winging
it when things look bleak. We vanquish the fear that what-ifs produce by reminding
ourselves that God is good even in the tough times and He is busy working out things
to our advantage.
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