The three chief causes of death in the United States are, in statistical order, diseases of the heart
cancer
and disorders of the nervous system.
Two of the three are obviously diseases brought on by the strains imposed on the human body by worry,
anxiety
nervousness
and the tensions of life in our modern world.
Our lives are so geared these days that any contemplation is difficult. I have tried it at the top of St. Michaels Episcopal Church and found it impossible even there.
I well remember leaning out of one the windows-about 550 feet above Charleston-wondering how the city must have looked in the time of George Washington
or Henry Laurens…
when Meeting Street was a cobblestone road, clogged with carriages.
As I stood there, lost in reverie, trying to recapture Washington’s past, I was interrupted by a voice from below asking for me to come back down.
Try standing for five minutes anywhere on the main shopping street of any city,
or in line at a restaurant during the rush of the evening hours.
Observe the surging, seething mass of humanity flowing past you.
Notice the furrowed brows,
the faces lined with anxiety and worry,
the haggard, hurried look.
Above all, notice the tenseness of the people,
the feeling of tension in the very atmosphere.
Its symptoms are obvious-irritation, short temper, frowns, nervousness, impatience…
fighting to be waited on…
struggling against time…
Everywhere is the tension that is just on the verge of hysterics
bitter tears,
screams of impotence and rage
and actual conflict.
Now, at this moment, when you are quiet, you know in your heart that God did not mean us to live like that. We were not made for that sort of struggle for existence. It is against every law of health, every law of God.
The essence and core of Christianity is trust in God.
As Christ traveled up and down the dusty roads of Palestine, He was constantly amazed that human beings did not really trust His heavenly Father.
“Why are you afraid?” He would say.
“How little you trust God!
“Why are you so fearful?
“How is it that you have no faith?
“O men, how little you trust Him!”
By every gentle word,
By every act of compassion and pity,
Christ was trying to show men that God is not only all-powerful, but also all-loving…
nearer to each of us than we know…
always ready and willing to make His power available to meet our needs.
Christ was constantly admonishing men to trust this loving Father, to pin all their faith on Him.
“Have no fear, only believe,” He said to one seeking healing.
“Have faith in God,” He said to a distraught father.
“All things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23)
Now why was it that Christ considered faith-trusting God-so all important?
And exactly what did He mean by “trusting God”?
This is fundamental to Christian faith.
It has to do with our understanding of life.
It has to do with that basic selfishness, which is so often mistaken for grief.
If you are in financial strain and have turned to God for help,
as you are expected to do…
as God wants you to do…
but you still continue to worry and don’t see how you can make both ends meet,
then you are really not trusting God to help you.
Why do we worry about these material things?
Our Heavenly Father knows perfectly well that we need them and is more willing to send them to us than we are to ask for them.
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall you Father which is in Heaven give good thing to them that ask him.” (Matthew 7:11)
God has pledged His word to supply all our needs.
Paul could testify that God keeps His promises.
I myself know that this promise is true.
God may not supply all your wants, because sometimes we want things that are not good for us.
Parents don’t supply all their children may want.
But you have every need supplied.
What more can we ask?
Why is it that Christ considered anxiety and worry a sin?
Because worry and anxiety are really lack of trust in God.
And this lack of trust shows that we do not really believe the promises of God.
We believe in God-but may not believe God.
If you doubt God’s ability to help you in a given difficulty, you are doubting either His Power
His ability to help you…
or you are doubting His willingness to help you.
To doubt either God’s power
Or God’s love
is to say by our actions:
“Lord, I do not believe your promises.
I do not think they really apply to me.
I do not think You will do it.
It might have been all right for Israel in the long ago, but Lord, You just don’t know Charleston, or Greenville, or for that matter, America.
Surely it is perfectly evident that to doubt God in that way is to sin against Him, and to cut ourselves off from His help.
Thus one of the greatest sins of Christian people is the sin of tension and worry.
It is characteristic of all our people, that we, as a nation, need to learn how to relax,
We have permitted ourselves to be stampeded into a life of unnatural and dangerous high pressure.
We try to cover too much ground.
We are always in a hurry.
Dr. Peter Marshall noted that on the outset of World War II, he gave his mother’s address to some of the men going overseas, in hope that they would be able to call upon her. Some of them did, and commenting on the first visit she received from the American soldiers, She said,
“They came in a jeep, and they were in a hurry.”
Has anything changed in those 60+ years?
Have American life slowed down and relax?
I think not.
Ever more increasingly, American society has become addicted to speed, ease of work, and convenience.
And that is a typical commentary worldwide on our American way of life.
We are always in a hurry.
We hate to miss one panel of a revolving door.
Some bright soul has defined a split second as “that interval of time between the changing of a traffic light from red to green, and the honking of the horn in the car immediately behind you.”
Whereas our grandparents could make a gracious ceremony and devote a whole evening to playing rounds of checkers, we now feel frustrated unless we can, in a single evening,
combine a dinner date
take in a movie
make a couple of phone calls
visit somebody on the way downtown
and maybe do some shopping on the way.
We try to do too much in too short a time.
We are compressing our lives into capsules that are quite indigestible.
That this sin of tension is taking a terrific toll among the people of the nation cannot be denied.
The incidence of functional diseases,
neuroses,
mental illness,
and heart trouble,
increases year after year.
Medicine has made great strides.
It has learned how to combat infectious diseases, but what has happened is that we have merely exchanged the type of disease.
The citadel of disease has simply retired to other strongholds further in, and more difficult to root out.
People rarely die of infectious diseases today, but more from degenerative diseases.
The years of life which we have gained by the suppression of smallpox, malaria, and childhood diseases, are stolen by the chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, ulcers and heart disease.
Thus, disease still has not been mastered
It simply has changed its nature.
As modern medicine seeks the cause of all this, it has made some startling discoveries.
The British Medical Journal puts it this way:
“There is not a tissue in the human body wholly removed from the influence of spirits.”
In other words, we are discovering that there is a closer relationship between our minds,
our emotions,
the state of our spiritual health, and our bodies,
than doctors thought possible decades ago.
To illustrate:
It is a well-known fact that the hyperacidity often leading to stomach ulcers is directly caused by emotional stress and, generally, a sense of frustration.
But physicians have discovered that the same thing is equally as true of other diseases.
Dr. Loring T. Swain of Boston, was a nationally known specialist of arthritis, stated that:
It has been increasingly evident, as pointed out by doctors everywhere, that physical health is closely associated with, and even dependent upon, spiritual health.
No constitutional disease is free from the effects of mental strains, which are part of life.
If tension and worry are the greatest sins of our day,
and if they affect not only our spiritual health,
not only our peace of mind and happiness-but even our physical
health,
it is certainly worthy of our greatest efforts to learn how to overcome them.
This is where Christianity has the answer.
God has designed us for happiness.
He has created us for peace and joy.
It is His will for each of His creatures that life shall be free and lived to the utmost for His glory.
Now, worshiping and serving God is a solemn thing,
but it can be happy.
We have confused being solemn with being sad,
being dignified with being depressed.
Have you ever wondered why going to church,
working in the church,
taking part in its activities
is done with a sigh instead of a smile or a song?
Why I it that so few people find in it fun,
fellowship
good company
good times
good humor
and happiness?
Christ’s invitation into the Kingdom of God as a joyous affair is like an invitation to a feast of good things, and an invitation to happiness.
Does your religious experience fit into that?
If not, there’s something wrong.
People refuse the offer of Christianity, because they never dream that what they want can be found there.
Christ offers us what we are really hungering for, but we don’t believe it, because we mistake what we really want in life.
How often Jesus used words that make the new life as attractive as a feast!
The prodigal son is received with music, dancing and a banquet.
The faithful servant is invited to enter into the joy of his Lord.
The wise virgins go into supper with the bridegroom.
There is only one conclusion-
Either Jesus was wrong-
or we have missed something.
Jesus did not intend that following Him should be sad.
It is true that He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” but that was in order that our joy might be full.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” Matthew 11:28
The yoke He imposes is an easy one.
It does not chafe
or hurt
or hold you back.
On the contrary –
It takes away pain,
gives you freedom
drives you on to a fuller and happier life.
But we won’t believe it.
We won’t give Him a chance.
We prefer to attempt to carry our burdens and, as if we did not have enough, we try to even carry God’s burdens also.
Now what shall we do, who are seeking peace of mind and heart? How can we find it?
First let us try to clear our thinking about the nature of God. Let us make a study, a serious study-for it merits our best efforts-to find out the nature of God.
Most of our difficulties, our lack of trust in God, spring from our basic misunderstanding of what God is like.
We are dismally ignorant of the love and the power of God.
No wonder we do not trust Him!
Have you ever set out to read you New Testament to find out about God?
How do you expect to know what God is like if you never read intelligently the only Book that professes to tell you these interesting things?
Get a good modern translation, like the Message or New Living Version, and read it intelligently.
Christ came to reveal God.
He said to one of his disciples:
“Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He hath seen me and hath seen the Father.” John 14:9
If you want to know what God s like, look at Christ.
Study what Christ said.
Notice what Christ did.
And remember-
He is “the same yesterday, and today, and forevermore.”
Next, study the lives of some others who have been personally acquainted with Him.
Read the letters, journals, and biographies of men like
Francis of Assisi
Thomas à Kempis
Wilfred Grenfell
George Müller of Bristol
Brother Bryan of Birmingham
William Pulmer Jacobs of Thornwell Orphanage
and Dr. George Washington Carver
Find out how God dealt with them, and thus you will begin to find out about God.
The second step is to become personally acquainted with God yourself-
in your own way,
according to your own needs and circumstances.
“Practice makes perfect” in the realm of the spiritual, as well as in other things.
You see, your real trouble is spiritual, so that the remedy must be spiritual too.
All of which means… “Take your burdens to the Lord…and leave them there.”
“But how?”… you ask.
Get off by yourself…somewhere…and tell God you fears-
what you are afraid of…
Tell Him what you are worried about…
And then ask Him…very simply…to take care of you.
Let all you fears go-give them to God.
He will not let you down.
Try to let yourself go…to God.
If you feel that you haven’t enough faith to do that…ask Him to give you the faith too.
He will do that-exactly that.
He will give you what it takes.
The man or woman who really trusts God is not spiritual rigid…
afraid of what may happen tomorrow…
rehearsing in imagination all the terrible thing that could happen.
No, as believers in God, we must relax.
When you are weary and sit down in a chair, you do not sit rigid, expecting the chair to collapse beneath you-that is, unless the chair is an antique…
When you lie down on you bed, you do not lie like a poker-tense, rigid.
You trust the bed to hold you.
You do not worry about the possibility of your bed collapsing and depositing you on the floor.
I have had that happen to me before…and it’s really not that bad.
But you don’t lie there speculating about the possibility of its happening. You don’t lie there all tense… listening for the sound of a burglar at the window…
or the crackle of flames from the basement…
or the smell of smoke…
or the trembling of the earth in a possible earthquake.
If you did, you would not get as much sleep.
You trust your bed.
You trust you precaution against burglars.
You trust the police force…
the fire department…
and trust yourself to sleep…
which is another way of saying you trust yourself to God.
The believer trust himself to God…
believing that God will watch over him.
Will you relax spiritually today?
Will you leave with God-now-the troubles you have been carrying around for so long?
Will you ask Him-now-to take them away from you?
and let you relax in simple trust…just like a little child?
Will you?
“There was once a fellow who, with his father, farmed a little piece of land.
Several times a year they’d load up the ox-cart with vegetables and drive to the nearest city.
“Except for their name and the patch of ground, father and son had little in common.
The old man believed in taking it easy…
and the son was a go-getter.
“One morning they loaded the cart,
hitched up the ox and set out.
The young fellow figured that if they kept going all day and night they’d get to the market by the next morning.
He walked alongside the ox and kept prodding it with a stick.
“‘Take it easy’, said the old man. ‘You’ll last longer’
“‘If we get to market ahead of the others,’ said his son, ‘we a have a better chance of getting good prices.’
“The old man pulled his hat down over his eyes and went to sleep on the seat.
Four miles and four hours down the road, they came to a little house.
‘Here’s your uncle’s place,’ said the father, walking up. ‘Let’s stop in and say hello.’
We’ve lost an hour already,’ complained the go-getter.
“‘Then a few minutes more won’t matter,’ said his father. ‘My brother and I live so close, yet we see each other so seldom.’
“The young man fidgeted while the two old gentlemen gossiped away an hour.
‘On the move again, the father took his turn leading the ox.
By and by, they came to a fork in the road.
The old man directed the ox to the right.
‘The left is the shorter way,’ said the boy.
“‘I know it,’ said the old man, ‘but this way is prettier.’
“‘Have you no respect for time?’ asked the impatient young man.
“‘I respect if very much,’ said the old fellow.
‘That’s why I like to use it for looking at pretty things.’
“The right-hand path led through woodland and wild flowers.
The young man was so busy watching the sun sink he didn’t notice how lovely the sunset was.
Twilight found them in what looked like on big garden.
‘Let’s sleep here,’ said the old man.
“‘This is the last trip I take with you,’ snapped his son.
‘You’re more interested in flowers than making money.’
“‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve said in a long time,’ smiled the old fellow.
A minute later he was asleep.
“A little before sunrise, the young man shook his father awake. They hitched up and went on.
A mile and a hour away they came upon a farmer trying to pull his cart out of a ditch.
‘Let’s give him a hand,’ said the father.
“‘And lose more time?’ exploded the son.
“‘Relax,’ said the old man
‘You might be in a ditch some time yourself.’
“By time the other cart was back on the road, it was almost eight o’clock.
Suddenly a great flash of lightning split the sky.
Then there was thunder.
Beyond the hills, the heaven grew dark.
‘Looks like a big rain in the city,’ said the old man.
“‘If we had been on time, we’d be sold out by now,’ grumbled his son.
“‘Take it easy,’ said the old gentleman, ‘you’ll last longer.’
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that they got to the top of the hill overlooking the town.
They looked down at it for a long time.
Neither of them spoke.
Finally, the young man who had been in such a hurry said, ‘I see what you mean, father.’
“They turned their cart around and drove away from what had once been the city of Hiroshima.”
