The Secret to a Living Hope and Less Anxiety

My husband and I begin our morning greetings in similar fashion most days. He admittedly beats me to the coffee while enjoying his bible reading with lights overhead. My eyes squint and assess the time on my watch. After exchanging inquiries that cover sleep quality from the previous night, we inevitably dive into the calendar.

“What do you need to do today?” He asks bracing for my long-winded answer.

Twenty minutes (maybe an exaggeration, maybe not) later I’m exhausted and anxious, wondering how in the world I will ever get to it all.

In response perhaps you, too, would rattle off your never-ending list of items to check and errands to run, or stumble around those swirling thoughts of desire that constantly linger. And it’s funny that we use the word need. We need water, oxygen, and healthy organs. We need sunlight, food, and money for food. Those are undeniable.

We also know that God created us with a need for community, and a desire to belong.

But the list that causes my heart the greatest angst is not filled with those kinds of needs, it’s the need for alone time or to workout. It’s the need for pants that fit in this season and a remedy for my chipped nails. It’s wondering how we are going to afford running cars, college tuition, and growing cares of our four children. I can literally feel the level of anxiety rise just typing it out. Anyone else?

So, during this week that falls immediately after Easter, I’m viewing my own needs through a resurrected lens and asking:

If Christ’s sacrifice on the cross satisfied my deepest need—full pardon from the penalty of my sin against the wrath of a holy and perfect God, life after death, and complete justification—then what do I really need to do today?

The truth is that I am free to minimize my performance-based anxiety, and instead find greater comfort in what has already been accomplished for me.

This week I’m finding an enormous amount of joy, comfort, and freedom in the fact that my greatest need has been taken care of, and nothing else I desire will ever compare to the fulfillment that comes in resting in that Truth. Want to join me?

In the New City Catechism, a series of questions and answers that form a statement of faith for the Church, one question speaks to this concept of hope and satisfying comfort. It says,

What is our only hope in life and death?

Our only hope is that we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.

For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Romans 14:7-8 (ESV)

Friend, Jesus ushers us into a new way of living because He has satisfied our greatest need. We are no longer held captive by other’s praise or criticism. We are no longer enslaved to the things of this world for our happiness. We are no longer bound by our sin, guilt, or shame. Even death forfeits its final say.

This new life is overflowing with living hope. Doesn’t that just make you want to inhale and exhale with gratitude?!

This week, then, let’s cease striving to complete or compete with His finished work on the cross. It is enough.

And yes, I know the spring calendar remains ridiculously full and the to do’s burdensome, but as I learn to rest in this living hope, the anxiety lifts and joy resurfaces. I dare you to try it.