Delight, not Anxiety

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.  Ps 94:19

Is that not an awesome verse?  Imagine that – delight instead of anxiety!  I love the thought!

And yet, when it comes to practicality, this verse seems pretty far-fetched.  This morning as anxious thoughts multiplied rapidly within me, I opened my prayer notebook to find this verse staring at me.  I began to ask the Lord to pour His consolations over me – I was ready for a delighted soul.

The problem came, as it frequently does, when I began to argue with Him over His consolations.  They weren’t what I wanted.  They weren’t promises to make life lovely and exciting.  Instead, they were consolations that He would be with me in the muck.  That’s not really what I wanted today.

The thing about God’s consolations is that they are not focused on this brief interlude of life that we think is so huge.  We get so caught up in our time here on earth that we forget that life – and therefore any related hope – is eternal.  So, when God’s eternal consolations begin to pour over us, we get frustrated because they don’t meet our earthly circumstances head-on.  Instead, they remind us of the need for an eternal viewpoint. 

It’s amazing how an eternal focus in and of itself can change those anxious thoughts.  Then God still pours His consolations out on top of that!  Today I am challenged to surrender my anxious thoughts to His perspective, all the while excitedly anticipating the delight that will fill my soul as His Word fills my mind.