In this excerpt from her Bible study, Stronger: Finding Hope in Fragile Places, Bible teacher, speaker, and author, Angela Thomas-Pharr, explains the unhealthy relationship we tend to have with worry.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
There are days when the difficulty arises in your heart or in your life. As a woman of God, we’re going to have to rise up and work out our salvation. Work to believe and work to pray instead of fret. Work to get to Jesus before anything.
Because to live the gospel like that–it runs counter to the way I was born. It kinda runs counter to my nature. I can instinctively go to fretting or worrying.
Because I was born into a long line of worriers. We’ve been trained in the fine art of worrying. Actually it was passed down as a mantel from one generation to the next generation. It’s a sign of how much I love you. “I have worried myself sick about you. Worried and worried. And I have made things up to worry about. Because that’s how much I love you.”
Turns out that worry like that is a sin. And we just keep passing that sin right down.
So that my nature is inclined to go that way, this new creation in Christ, she’s got to work out her salvation because I’ve chosen it. I’m going to live in the truth of what God has done for me. I want to live in the truth of being that new creation. That newly created. I am going to have to work out my believing. Believe God first and believe God only and go to His Word for that direction.