The Lord has recently been bringing conviction to me in the area of worry. I grew up in an environment of worry and fear, so letting my mind go into places of worry for a few minutes didn't seem like such a bad thing. Yet God is now unveiling the darkness and deception in worry. I have a friend who says that fear is negative faith, that fear works to bring about that which you fear. It is basically the Enemy using our belief that the thing we fear could happen to actually have us sow this into our future and thus becoming part of bringing it about. I believe worry is part of "orphan thinking" where we believe we have no father to take care of us so this void begins to pull us into a place of fear, lack, and then speculating into our future a negative picture. Worry may seem reasonable in our fear-driven, uncertain, and unstable times but is of the Kingdom of Darkness. In Philippians 4:6 we are told "Do not be anxious for nothing..." Anxiety and worry are similar if not exactly alike. I believe worry is not just a sin but a powerful weapon of the Enemy to lead us away from Christ, into idolatry, and toward death. We really can only begin to dream when we believe we are safe and taken care of, otherwise our minds will get obsessed on having the one thing we are in need of. When we know we are safe and taken care of, we begin to dream without limits, this is important because one author said, "...you don't inherit through logic but through your dreams..." So as sons and daughters of the Most High God dreaming is important because we must dream it before we are to actually receive what we dream of as inheritance. So the Enemy has schemed to get us off track, his first line of attack is our identity and then he looks to steal our inheritance "in Christ". His weapons are not a sword or a spear but thoughts that seek to hook us into a pattern of think that will lead us away from Christ and away from our inheritance. In Romans 1:21 we see the consequences of the failure to worship God, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened." The Lord was revealing to me that futility in their speculations came before their foolish hearts became darkened, so in other words we must think it before we reap the fruit of it in our hearts. The word for speculations in the Greek is dialogismos which means inward perceptions, this fits with worry as an inward perception or thought pattern that springs from fear of something or someone but not God. Worry is deeply rooted in unbelief or "orphan thinking". Bill Johnson said, "I cannot afford to have a thought in my head that is about me that is not in His." I can now see why the renewed mind is so important for us to be transformed (Romans 12:1-2). The Holy Spirit is bringing more conviction as I write this, so I am seeing how I have given room to the Enemy's deception and one of the ways he has brought me into discouragement. As I repent toward God for allowing my mind to go into the dark place of worry which usually includes lack and then lack to an extreme (death), I am asking God to teach me how to dream. Dreaming would be natural if you grow up in an environment of abundance and possibilities but when lack is your experience than worry becomes natural. The Good News is that in Isaiah 61 the first thing the anointing of the Spirit deals with is poverty because it is so destructive and is not of the Kingdom of God. I am not saying that God's desire is that we move into hoarding, greed, or being materialistic. Poverty did not come from God this entered into the world through the "Lie" and the idea that God is withholding.
Free from worry to Dream,
Bret
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