How often have you read a post asking for prayer warriors to pray for something? Those requests are everywhere because prayer is powerful and when we pray God listens. But, as I get older I am realizing there is a difference between being a worrier and a warrior when I talk to God.
I have spent most of my life struggling with fear and anxiety. I remember being in elementary school and crying because I was scared that people didn't like me. As I look back on the fear in my life I know that the majority of it has come from being too worried about the thoughts of other people. For a lot of my life and still sometimes today I go to God as a worrier. I want to talk to you about the difference between the two today and how I'm working on becoming a warrior and not a worrier.
First, let's look at worry. It comes from focusing on one of two things: ourselves or the thoughts of others. So when we are a worrier, our prayers are inwardly focused when we talk to God. When we present a problem to God we already have the solution worked out, and we are just telling God how we want him to fix everything. We are thinking about what we think would be best for us. The other option for a worrier is that we come to God agonizing over how other people will or have perceived us and how those perceptions will affect our lives. What we are really asking God for us our comfort with no thought about what God is trying to do in our lives.
I know in the last two and a half years I have focused on what other people have thought of me as a mother. I rarely have stopped to ask God if he is pleased with the mother I am. Sometimes I believe that his answer would be yes. Still other days I believe God would tell me "Not right now, but I will be if you'll look to me.". Those are the days that my focus is in the wrong place. I'm focused on what I think I needed to do, how I think other people expect my child to behave, and not on what God wants from my relationship with my child. Worry makes us and our comfort the thing that we worship.
I did a J.D. Greer study once where he made a profound statement. He said that he wanted what he would ask for if he knew what God knew. That's being a warrior. Warriors don't make the battle plans. They look to the one who is in charge and go where he leads. When we become warriors, prayer warriors, we go to God asking for him to give us instruction. Being a warrior is much simpler than being a worrier. I won't promise it's easier, but it is simpler. When you are a warrior all you have to focus on is God and what He desires for you.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of trying to hold it all together on my own. In fact, the Bible tells me just the opposite.
"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. " Colossians 1:17
That tells me I don't have to make the plans, He does. I don't have to fix it all, He does. I don't have to be perfect, He is.
Will you join me today in switching your focus and becoming a warrior and not a worrier?.
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