Wound and Bound by Worry

 

I looked out the window to see two downy woodpeckers fussing with each other at the suet feeder.

 “That’s odd,” I thought to myself. Usually a bird at any of the feeders gives way to an incoming version with its wings spread intimidatingly and speed on its side. But this one refused to give ground. It stayed and retaliated with pecking motions of its own directed at the hungry visitor. Their back and forth squabbling continued as I turned away to get on with my day.

I thought it strange later in the day to see the same type of woodpecker again standing ground over the suet cage. It fluttered about the feeder but never flew away. Could it possibly be the same bird? And why was it being so territorial?

As darkness settled over the backyard I again saw the bird clinging to the rope just below the feeder… unnatural behavior for this time of day. I began to wonder if it didn’t leave because it couldn’t leave… but I went on with my evening plans.

The night was cold, with temperatures at freezing or below. So when the sun rose and I looked out on the deck, only to see the bird still clinging to the rope, I knew something was wrong. My son came upstairs looking for coffee just then, and I pointed to the woodpecker. “It’s been there since yesterday afternoon.”

He stepped out to check things out, his height negating the need for the stepladder I would’ve had to pull out to reach the high-hanging feeder. The bird flapped its wings at his approach, fluttering in tight circles around the rope but never flying away. Gently Kevin cupped his hands around the flapping wings to still the frantic escape attempts and discovered the reason they weren’t successful: a strand from the rope had knotted itself around one of the woodpecker’s legs, keeping it on a short lease. Releasing the bird momentarily to retrieve a pair of scissors, he was quickly back with them in hand. Gently collaring the bird with one hand he deftly snipped the string holding the bird bound with the other, then released it and watched as it quickly flew away to safety and freedom.

How like that bird am I when I allow my worries over a situation to hold me captive! My thoughts persistently flutter around and around the problem in increasing desperation, but my mind won’t let me leave it alone – I’m seemingly tied tightly to the problem at hand and cant escape on my own.

Thankfully there is One Who comes to my rescue and does for me what I cannot not do on my own. With His death on the cross Jesus overcame the power binding me and set me free from that which grabs my attention and holds me fast.

He cut the string… He tore the veil… He conquered the forces trying to conquer me, and when I simply remember that fact, I am suddenly released to soar freely in the heavens with Him again.

 

“Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare…” (Psalm 91:3 NIV)

Stinking Thinking

They were simply everywhere.

Truly it was an invasion of sorts, a reverse of what happened in the springtime, when a multitude of the stinkbugs suddenly appeared. Unnoticed before, the little brown bugs could now be spotted on walls, tables, and buzzing around lampshades when the lights were turned on. Thankfully not harmful, they were yet creepy, their one protection mechanism being to emit a horrid, lingering smell when disturbed or crushed, prompting warnings to release them outdoors unharmed or dispose of anything that touched them likewise outside. A quick internet search revealed that having enjoyed the warmth of our winter home, these once-invisible house-guests were now just anxious to get back outside and find something to eat. We were only too happy to let them go.

But now on a beautiful October day, they were back, trying to take the house by storm. Thousands of the brown shield-shaped bodies swarmed over windows, screens, glass doors and awnings, an onslaught of an armor-clad insect army seemingly intent on making its way back indoors. Alarmed, I texted pictures of our bug-covered windows to my husband, whose terse four-word response became the battle cry of the day: “DON'T LET THEM INSIDE!” Obligingly I took the dogs in and out to do their business through the garage door, keeping a closed line of defense between us and the bugs at all times.

Because it was October and I had the day off, I started knitting a leaf-shaped coaster to sit under my coffee cup as a celebration of fall. I found some yarn and sat at the kitchen table, keeping my needles moving and a wary eye on the attempted invasion going on outside. It helped to know I was not doing so alone. Facebook posts warned fellow homeowners likewise under attack to pull any window air-conditioners that might give the bugs access and to maintain a tight ship while the invasion was ongoing.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it was over. A day or two later there wasn't a bug to be seen. Where had they gone? Had they made it into my attic? Or had they retreated to attack again in another place on another day? Just glad to see them go, I pushed all thought of them away and went on with my days.

There was plenty of other stuff to think about; my mind of late had been bombarded with anxious thoughts. Health concerns, family issues, friends battling life-threatening illnesses...on and on the enemy lobbed worry grenades on a mind that was for some reason left open to attack. Normally good at pushing worrisome thoughts aside, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of mental bombs exploding around me and had totally lost the pervading peace that guards my soul as a result. Pinned down and cowering in a mental foxhole, I hollered for help in this battle for my mind.

And He came. He showed up in picture form, using the same photos I had sent to my husband days earlier of the insect invasion. Each worry that was plaguing me was in reality just a harmless little bug, an attempt to inject the stink of worldly thinking into a mindset that prefers the fragrance of the presence of God. Lulled by the earlier period of mental peace, I was unprepared for the sudden onslaught of anxiety and had temporarily lost my spiritual focus. And that is the enemy's battle plan in a nutshell. He wants us to be so overwhelmed by what he is doing that we spend all our time consumed with him instead of being about the Father's business.

God doesn't want us sitting around wringing our hands and watching the enemy; the devil is a defeated foe. Instead, we should be filling our minds so full of the Kingdom of God and His plans and purposes for our lives that we simply don't have time to waste on worry. To borrow from Star Trek vernacular, He has equipped us with mental deflector shields to protect us from enemy attack. We just need to use them.

Our prayers activate those shields; the Bible promises peace in response to the requests we make of Him. More than just a pleasant word, peace is an active verb that fights on our behalf, guarding our hearts and minds from the onslaught of the troubles and trials of the world. Who knew that a word that falls so softly on the ear could be such a mighty weapon of war? Prayer and peace do battle together...and we are the grateful recipients of the victory they provide.

I had to laugh when I looked at the little coaster I had just completed. Looking more like a stinkbug than the leaf I intended, perhaps it was God's intention for me to set my coffee cup down on it each day and hear His voice say, “Shields up!” as I prepared to then “boldly go” on my way.

“Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good.”

(Romans 12:21 AMP, emphasis mine)

Decide to be Deciduous

I've never been a fan of leafless trees. The bare skeletons reaching to the sky after proudly dropping their vibrant covering in a final burst of color is depressing to me, speaking only of death and decay and the dreariness of winter ahead, while spring is just a distant hope on the horizon.

I come from the part of the country where conifers are king, and “evergreen” trees are exactly that, holding their needles close, all year long. There are few more beautiful sights than fir boughs cradling freshly fallen snow in the winter, or the lime green “fingertips” of new growth shooting out the ends of darker hued branches everywhere come spring. The forest backdrop of a sea of green brings beauty to every mountain scene and peace to my anxious soul. I love the constancy and stability of an evergreen tree in a world where change is the name of the game.

And then I moved to the Midwest...that part of the country where radical temperature change is a reality, and the resultant transformation of physical surroundings is eagerly acknowledged, anticipated, and embraced as one season after another rolls in to steal our short-lived attention and affection. I had to learn a whole new way to live. And I discovered that there is a reason Fall is the most beautiful season of them all.

The word deciduous was added to my vocabulary and my life experience. It means the shedding of something at a particular time of year or stage of growth, and refers to that which is not permanent, but transitory. Perhaps it is most often used to describe the type of tree that loses its leaves in the autumn months when the chlorophyll that gives the leaves their green color is pulled back towards the stem, and foliage everywhere flames in a dazzling display of red, orange and yellow hues before dropping to the ground to be kicked around, raked up, jumped in and burned.

I've always thought the beauty of the season was in that brief but glorious visual display. Yet I think God actually prefers the bare stems that are left behind, which I have always so scorned. And here's why...

What if we picture the leaves as worries in our lives, concerns that bud innocently enough in the springtime of each developing situation? These leafy agitations grow as they are fed by the time and attention we devote to them as the days pass, until the sheer number and size of them about our lives is so great that when we look up, they obscure our view of the Son and we live in the shadow of their control.

God never intended us to be weighed down with worry and distress. And the good news is that we don't have to wait for a certain time of year to change our thinking and be done with all that. He took the mental and physical burden of all our problems and literally “lashed” them on His own back, that they wouldn’t trouble us any longer. Now we are as free to let them fly away as a tree unleashes a free-fall of spent foliage in a good gust of wind.

That's what can make the “autumn season” in our spiritual experience so achingly beautiful. All it takes is that initial moment of realization to begin a deliberate pulling back of the fuel that feeds the worry process. We finally see our problems for what they really are, addictive distractions that grab our attention but block us from the love of God flowing towards us and the life of victory He has planned for us. When they no longer have the mind control over us they crave, they fall off our lives and hinder us no more. God desires us to be so lighthearted about our lives that we jump into piles of our dried up worries and toss them up in the air around us, now toys instead of trials.

One look at my basement will expose me as a truly “evergreen” girl, born with a tendency to hold on to physical possessions forever and ever and ever, amen. What is true in the natural world is often true in the spiritual one, as well, so I'm trying to get better about shedding the things that are taking up too much room, not only in my basement, but in my life experience, my thought processes...and especially my heart.

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

(John 14:27 NKJV)

The Worry Wart

The drop of Compound W at the end of the applicator brush grew slowly bigger, bulkier, finally bulging at the end of the applicator brush held over the finger that was so patiently waiting underneath. One drop would cover the spot, but that drop was taking a lifetime, it seemed, to gather its strength and release its load of salicylic acid on the troublesome wart below. My bad, of course. I had noticed the medicine seemed to be getting thicker as the days went on. Apparently I was allowed to thin the solution and shake thoroughly before application; a detail I'd missed. I waited instead.

It seemed like I'd waited long enough to even start the removal process, when first one and then a second wart appeared on the affected finger. I ignored them until I found that their presence was attracting the constant attention of the nearby thumb, which ran itself over the bumpy skin repeatedly throughout the course of the day. The warts had become a silent worry I needed to dispose of. Compound W came to the rescue.

I know I am not alone. Not everybody has warts on their skin, but we all have bumpy spots on our souls, problem areas that need to be corrected before they demand any more of our time and attention and hinder us from fully devoting ourselves to the work we were put here to do. We tend to ignore those difficult areas in our relationship with God until we realize that they are not going to go away on their own; action of some type is required.

Perhaps it's not any one particularly sinful action we are dealing with; none of the Ten Commandments has been broken, we love God and (most of!) those with whom we share the earth. Some of us are just prone to worry about things over which we have no control or what what the future might hold. But worry is itself a spiritual wart...an indication that our trust and confidence in our Creator's love for us is not where it needs to be. The numerous times the words, “do not worry”, “do not fear”, and “do not be afraid” appear in the Bible are an indication of how important this issue is to God, and yet they are commands we break with astonishing regularity.

How funny that the solution for the problem is likewise “Compound W”...multiple applications of the Word of God. Soaking ourselves repeatedly, consistently several times a day in what God has to say peels back the layers of wrong thinking and justifications with which we've covered our actions until the root of the problem can be uncovered and corrected.

I have wanted to interfere several times in the wart removal process. Impatient to get on with my day, I've raised the finger to meet the brush, painting the medicine on instead of waiting for the drip. And I've tried to hurry the peeling action of the drug by picking at the area. Instead of moving things along I only delayed the process, as I then had to wait for the irritated skin to heal before beginning the application process once more.

When spiritual change doesn't happen fast enough to suit us, we tend to take matters in our own hands, as well. We want a quick fix, a one-time prayer, a laying-on of hands, a single church sermon that will set us straight. And sometimes God works in lightning-bolt fashion as He did with Saul-turned-Paul on the Damascus road. But more often He leads us down a path of daily application of time in His Presence, reading His Book, developing a relationship with Him that eventually kills the sin virus working within us, removed the dead evidence of our old lives and makes us fresh and new once more.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

(2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV)