Check Up

Philip.4:⁶ “Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come.” (Voice)

As with many things in life, when we get the fundamentals right, complex things become effortless. Take spiritual growth, for instance, some people think that spiritual growth is a complex issue, but it really is not, when you focus on the fundamentals. What are the fundamentals of spiritual growth? Simple, read your Bible and pray every day if you want to grow. You will discover that when you do the fundamentals, you begin to grow, begin to hear God, and things begin to fall into place spiritually. It is all mostly about the fundamentals. Take any area of your life that seems so overwhelming and complex. Check, what are the fundamentals in that area? In marriage for instance, what are the fundamentals of  marriage? Husbands love your wives; wives submit to your husbands.

If these two things are in place, marriage will be sweet. But I have discovered that human beings like to complicate things even though we cannot do without the fundamentals. In any area of study, it is all about principles, it is all about the fundamentals. And when it comes to thanking God, it is still all about fundamentals. Take cars, for instance, most cars these days have this check engine sign (light). The check engine light comes up on your dashboard when something is wrong somewhere. But when the check engine sign comes up, most people are focused on how to make it go off. They take it to a roadside mechanic who claims that when he joins xyz wires together, the check engine sign will go off.

People mostly want to just get rid of the check engine light instead of getting to the  root cause. Why did the check engine light come on? To get to the root of it, you need to take the car to the manufacturer, right? That car needs to go for a check-up so, take it to the manufacturer or to a representative of the manufacturer if you want to get the best results and you can afford it. Similarly, for us human beings, anxiety is the check engine sign on our dashboard. If you are anxious about something, it is just a sign that something bigger is wrong or something bigger needs to be attended to. However, most times people just want to wish the anxiety away, or use their self-will to push the anxiety away, or fill it up with all sorts of habits to get rid of the anxiety. But anxiety for us human beings is the sign that we need to take the machine back to the Maker for a check-up. Anxiety is a signal alerting you and I that it is time to pray.

You cannot be anxious and be grateful at the same time. It does not work. Human beings like to have control of the different areas of our lives. When people lose control financially, they become financially anxious. When they lose control maritally, or in their career, or in their business, people become anxious. Anxiety shows us that we are losing control. Gratitude is actually giving control to God; it is an act of surrendering to God.

Prayer: Father, You are my Help in ages past, my Hope for years to come, in Jesus Name. Amen!