Chronicles of a Teenage Christian

1. Self Diagnosed Worrier

I’m a self diagnosed worrier. Not a warrior like Samson, Saul or David; but a worrier like Moses when God told him to free the Israelites from Egypt. This diagnosis has been confirmed by a couple of people already so I know it’s true, they’ve said “You worry too much” when I over think a situation.

I worry about the littlest things such as a spider being in my room. It’s so bad that the first thing I do when I get back from college is scan the walls for any disgusting 6 legged creatures that decided to take refuge in my room for the six hours I was gone.

I felt worry weigh me down and churn my stomach when my phone broke yesterday, I’ve only had it for four months and it’s already acting up, what if I have to pay through my nose to get it fixed?

On results day I was overcome with worry even though I walked out of every exam knowing the content of each question like the back of my hand because I’d revised so hard months in preparation.

I worry about university, what if my personal statement isn’t good enough? What if they don’t accept me? What if this isn’t even the course I will enjoy? What if I pick the wrong university all together? What if this isn’t the path God wants me to go on?

A few weeks ago I read a book by Joyce Meyer titled ‘How to Hear From God’. She said “You can’t drive a parked car. You need to be moving if you want God to show you which way to go... if you take one step forward, and it’s the wrong way, He will let you know before you go too far.” So in practical terms, you have to try certain things and fail at them before you start to uncover your purpose. But that’s the problem, I don’t want to fail. In fact I’m terrified of failure and the humiliation and self-doubt that comes with it.

I classify my worry as fear but God said fear isn’t of Him. He never created the Spirit of Fear so obviously it comes from none other than the devil himself. To let go of fear I’m supposed to voice all of my problems to God and he will give me rest as he said in Matthew 11:28. It’s a lot harder than it sounds when you feel like God doesn’t always respond but as Anthony Evans says “maybe [He’s] speaking through the silence, maybe it’s all I need to hear”

Society says worry is part of human nature, the flesh as God calls it. Apparently it’s okay to be scared of what the future has in store for you, it’s normal. Is it? I should be excited about my future, not worried about it. I won’t lie and say certain aspects of my future excite me. I look forward to graduating, meeting and getting married to the man God set apart for me, having kids and being happy. It’s just the process of getting to these milestones that scare me.

‘What if I don’t graduate?’ ‘What if I don’t meet my future husband till I’m old and infertile?’ ‘What if I find out I can’t have kids?’ It shouldn’t be set as a norm in today’s society to worry about those things. This is why a majority of our generation set out to be failures before their life has begun. These milestones and aspirations God sets in our heart are made to seem like a distant dream from the questions of doubt that fill our mind.

So what do I do to change this? I find myself in an endless cycle of asking God, waiting for an answer, and getting frustrated when I feel like my questions fall on deaf ears. However this is exactly what Joyce meant when she said I can’t drive a parked car. I already know what I need to do, I need to pray and study my bible more often but I don’t do it. Maybe I don’t do it because I’m lazy and so that when God asks me why I never pursued a relationship with him I can say ‘but I asked you how and you never got back to me’ – not good enough

One thing I do agree with society on is that sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Ignorance of the word and spiritual deafness is stealing my cure for worry away from me. It’s stealing my relationship with God away from me. I have to wake up and start taking broad steps of faith, trusting that God has my back every step of the way. So from now on I'm challenging myself to talk to God about everything that worries me and trust him. You can't have a relationship with anyone without trust so there I have it, trust is the first stepping stone.

Do you struggle with feelings of doubt? What are you afraid of and what is your biggest fear? Why don't you try talking to God about it and see what happens?