Musing on the Master

A few of my pastor's wife friends and I have been sharing our struggle with anxiety recently. This morning, as I was reading Knowing God by J. I. Packer, I came across a quote that impacted me profoundly. Packer is quoting a young Charles Spurgeon (who, at the time of preaching this, was only twenty years old!), and so I quote him here:

"Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead."

As one who has struggled with anxiety, I have come to acknowledge two things. One is that as my knowledge of God increases my anxiety decreases. As a child of God, I cannot become more deeply aquainted with His power and His authority without being comforted in my fear. Paul said, "...for I know Him Whom I have believed and I am [positively] persuaded that He is able to guard and keep that which has been entrusted to me and which I have committed [to Him] until that day." (2 Timothy 1:12, Amplified) As I see Him more fully, as I see the might of His arms, and begin to catch a glimse of the tender, fatherly love with which He watches over me and those I love, my trust in Him grows and my fear lessens. And two, many times the issue of control is at the root of my anxiety. I am desperate to remain in control of what may happen to those I love, all the while seeing how useless my control is because I am so weak. But as I give over control to Him, in whom my weakness is made into strength, my anxiety vanishes like the remnants of a summer storm in the face of the sun.

As one who has often longed to drown the very life out of the cares that hound and harrass me, I have set my face to know God, to plunge myself into His immensity, and allow him to speak peace to the winds of my life. This Mom will be "Musing on the Father" from now on!