Do not be afraid little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.  Luke 12: 32

Anxiety is a big issue in life for many people.  It is fostered by concern over our health, our family, our job, and our financial security.  Anxiety can drive us into thinking that we are responsible for getting ourselves out of whatever mess we’re in.  As we attempt to get out of the quagmire of our anxiety, we only seem to succeed in plunging ourselves in deeper.

Anxiety is really a matter of misplaced trust…trusting ourselves instead of God.  We find it difficult to take God at His Word, trusting that He knows BEST what we need. How could a God who seems so remote know the ordeals that we have to suffer on the human scene?  In answer to our doubts about God’s care for us, we build up our own self-sufficient kingdoms…kingdoms in which we are the maters of our destiny.  We try to be the creators of our own lifestyles and providers for all our desires and needs. We slave away at getting the things that make for the good life.

Slaving away is probably the best description because it aptly describes our condition before God.  We are enslaved to sin, to our own desires, to our self-centeredness. We try to earn what we deserve…and we succeed because we have earned death.

Our trust has been misplaced.  And our anxiety grows.  But God in His lavish love gives us the gift of His kingdom.  It is to be His kingdom, not ours; His righteousness, not our pride or efforts.  God, “who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32), gives us the kingdom of His grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  His Son, Jesus took a cross, the load of our sin, and cruel death to free us from anxiety, to relieve us of the burden of trying to play king of our own kingdoms.  Through Christ’s death and resurrection we have been made children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of God.  We can trust our Lord to provide for us.  Thus follow the footsteps of His lavish love and be anxious for nothing!