Can’t Stop Worrying? How to Let Go of Fear and Trust God with What You Can’t Control

Today, we are digging into why fear and anxiety and worry is holding us hostage.

Listen, I have struggled with just having thoughts of worry and anxiety, being afraid of what could happen, you know, to my kids, to anything.

And let me tell you, I have just listened to something that just put it on my heart that this is something that so many of us struggle with, and.

And it is stealing our peace.

It is stealing our joy.

So we're going to dig into today why we need to work harder, and we need to get into the scriptures that remind us to let go of the fear and the worry and the anxiety, because that is how God designed us.

He doesn't want us to stay stuck in these places.

And I'm going to dig into this so much more in just a minute.

But this is going to be a great episode.

And I know you're going to take some things away from this that might really help you start letting go of some of the things maybe you've been holding onto as well.

Welcome to Faith Filled Living, the podcast for women who want to find joy again, grow closer to God, and rediscover the woman he created you to be.

I'm your host, Kristin Fitch.

Each week you'll find encouragement, honest conversations, biblical perspective, and practical tools to help you experience more joy, purpose, and peace in everyday life.

Because the woman God created you to be is still there, and it's never too late to come alive to the life he created me to live.

Okay, so just putting it out there, I'm going to be honest with you.

I think for a good part of my life, I have lived in a spirit of fear, a spirit of worry or angst.

Now, not every second of every day, but I can tell you this, that in those moments in the days, and there was many days when I had worrisome thoughts or are my kids going to be safe?

Or, you know, is something going to happen, you know, to them?

Or, you know, just like partly mothering thoughts.

But here's the problem with this.

Every time we worry, we're afraid, we're anxious, we are trying to control outcomes.

We are.

We are getting pulled out of the present.

And I'm going to be honest with you, I even many days where I would pray about whatever it was that I was worrying about, and that's in quotes, or afraid about or fearful about, it was consuming me.

And there were seasons, if I'm going to be honest with you, when somebody maybe close to me was struggling.

In one case, it was one of my sons with some mental health stuff.

And it was very often on my mind worrying about him.

And while that might seem like a normal, natural response, especially for a parent and a mom, it wasn't healthy, right?

Because I couldn't do anything about it.

Yes, I could pray about it.

Yes, I could try to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make something better.

But the honest truth is we don't know what even an hour from now is going to bring into our lives.

We don't know what tomorrow brings.

We don't know how long we have on this planet.

We know none of these things yet.

It's when we're trying to control, be in control.

It's when we're trying to determine or create outcomes and timelines that we then feel afraid or worried or anxious if it's not going to happen that way or if we don't know.

But God never said we're going to know.

And oh, by the way, usually we're not going to know.

But here's what hit me.

I listened to something the other day and it talked about the spirit of fear and what that really is.

And this is changing everything for me.

Like, I now want to do everything in my power to get to the place in every moment of every day where I do not allow in the fear and the worry and the what ifs in a negative way into my life.

And I'm going to share this with you in a minute.

But first, let's start with just a scripture or two that just reminds us not to be worried and not to be afraid.

And I couldn't really figure out how many times in the Bible there's been different sayings about how many times it says, do not be afraid, do not fear, do not worry.

But let's just say it says it a lot.

It's a constant reminder for us.

And it's mentioned in the New Testament for sure, and then even in the Old Testament.

Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

God's saying we shouldn't be dismayed, right?

So we shouldn't be any of those things.

And he's reminding us he is our God.

He's all knowing, he's all powerful.

He is here and he's walking alongside us.

Another One is Psalm 118:6 which says, the Lord is with me.

I will not be afraid.

What can mere mortals do to me, right?

So good.

Okay, so let's dig in.

So I was listening and I'm not going to get this person's name right.

So I apologize.

I've not heard her name pronounced.

And so I apologize to her in advance, but was listening to.

I'm going to say it's icy.

Let's say a jin gaba.

But she's talking about that before sin in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had unbroken fellowship with God.

Okay?

So we can all, we can all get that.

There wasn't fear, there wasn't worry in the, in the Garden of Eden.

But fear showed up in the Bible when Adam.

Well, I'm sorry, after Peter, they ate from the tree of good and evil.

And Adam said, when I heard your voice, I was afraid.

He was afraid of God and he hid.

And you know, basically that God's like saying, where are you?

You're not where I am.

And so this is the part of what she shares.

And that just hit me.

And I think it's going to hit you too.

She says fear is not just a spirit, right?

We can have the spirit of fear or spirit of a lot of different things that can kind of come over us or consume us.

She said it's a region, it's a realm, and it's a place that's mentioned in the Bible.

She says, but here is the key.

Fear is a region outside of the presence of God.

You guys.

What?

So listen to me closely.

When we are fearful, when we are afraid, when we are worrying, when we are anxious, when we are trying to control what happens to someone we love or control what happens to our career or whatever it might be, what they're saying is we cannot be in the presence of God and be those things.

I don't know about you, but I want to be in the presence of God.

I do not want my thoughts to consume me and take me away from the place, the space of the spirit of God in the presence of God.

And so, so basically, when we are fearful, when we are worried, right, we are afraid.

We've gone into a place that God did not create because it came about after we sinned.

And so we, we want to start saying prayers that are going to get us to a place where we, we release the spirit of fear, that we remove ourselves from the place where there is not the presence of God because that's how we start experiencing more of the fruit of the spirit, right?

The peace, the joy, that calm.

And so the reason we feel the fruit of the spirit is because it's with when we're in the presence of God and the Holy Spirit is filling us.

But when we are stuck in these other things.

Yes, today I'm mostly talking about fear and being anxious and being worried.

But you could also apply this to other things that are not of God.

Right.

Like, I mean, I'm sorry, like, towards people being angry at someone and holding onto the anger, being bitter and holding on to the bitter, like, whatever it is.

So.

But I think this is huge.

And in a minute, I want to give you a few questions to think about when you start worrying or being afraid or fearful about something.

But before I do, I also want to connect another dot here for you, which is for many of us that find ourselves being anxious often, or at least about certain things, or worried about certain things, or fearful of certain things, a lot of times, it's those of us that are maybe overthinkers, right?

We're the people that.

We're in our heads a lot, thinking about a lot of things, whether we actually say them to other people or not.

And here's what's interesting.

Overthinking happens because we are focused on what the outcome will be, but we aren't in charge of the outcomes.

Like, I had a conversation with Pastor Jason Laird.

I think it was in May.

But he says our outlook is on us, right?

How we see the world, how we show up in our day to serve and love and everything.

And then our output is on us.

What are we actually putting out into the world, right?

How are we.

Are we doing good work?

Are we serving people?

Are we loving people?

Are we showing up to be Christlike in the world?

So outlook and output are on us.

But then he says, but outcomes, those are on God.

That's not our business.

But it's when we're trying to determine that the future or something goes the way that we hope and pray it does.

And those are not bad things.

Like when my son was struggling with some mental health stuff, of course I want the best outcome for him, but.

But instead of being afraid or fearful about, like, what if something happened?

I needed.

What would have been better was only to focus on Lord, thank you for bringing him home to us from college, Lord.

Thank you for letting him feel safe enough to speak to us, Lord.

Thank you.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Like, yes, I did do those things.

I thanked God for all of that.

But instead of staying there and just praying, praying over my son, I started getting in a worried state all the time.

And I won't go into the details about what I would worry about.

But then I started worrying about my other kids.

And please realize we have a major mental health epidemic at this point in the world of all ages, very young kids, all the way up, of all age people.

So it is actual concern for us.

And then I had a son.

Something happened to him.

And so my point is it would just make that spirit of fear build in me more.

Right.

It took up more space in my mind, though, and it was keeping me from being able to be fully present and in the presence of God.

Presence of God.

So this is the other thing.

If we want to stop overthinking, we have to focus on taking an action, right?

Like, what can I do or how can I help?

And then what can I pray about and what can I focus on?

And that's when we stop overthinking.

The other thing is we need to remember we can't control outcomes, but we can control our effort and attitudes, which is much like the outcome, I'm sorry, the outlook and the output.

That's the way I say it, right, is we can control our effort and attitudes.

So that's the one thing I wanted to share with you, is if you're an overthinker, maybe you're not thinking that you were thinking worrisome or fearful thoughts, but maybe you're just always thinking, you're always trying to manage or control something, then this is also for you.

You know, it's just different language, the way that I might talk about it.

Okay, so the next thing that I want to share with you about this, sorry, I'm just trying to find it, is, are your worries and your fear bigger than God?

Because this is one of the things that was happening to me.

And maybe you can relate to this.

I think it's sometimes what, what we call double mindedness.

And here's what I'm saying.

I believe God for the promises and the blessings that he share, you know, tells us about in the Bible.

And he says they're for us too.

But then if my problem festers in my worry and my fear, am I believing God, that He's almighty and all powerful, or am I believing in my problem?

And so we have to start realizing, are we double talking?

In other words, one minute, are we like, yes, God, I'm praying for this and I believe you for it.

But then the next minute we're so worried about it that we really are afraid that the thing we're worrying about could happen.

Well, friends, that means that we're not fully trusting God.

And I don't think it's purposeful.

It wasn't purposeful for me.

And I didn't even realize it, to be honest with you, when I was walking through days like that.

But what we say we believe God for, and then if we then are continuing to worry, it means that we don't trust God for the outcomes.

It means that we believe that he really won't do what he says.

And so we do need to be aware of that, because I think the more we consider our thoughts and what do they actually mean, the more we can start changing our thoughts.

So here's a couple questions I want you to ask yourself when you find yourself worrying about trying to control the outcomes or you're feeling anxious or afraid or worried about something in your life.

So one of them is this.

And you can write these down.

Is this thought serving or shackling me?

Meaning is the thought helping my life?

You know, what I'm thinking about, what I'm focused on?

Or is it shackling me to something?

So the shackling could be to fear, to worry?

Is it keeping me stuck, in other words?

And I think that if we start really thinking about what it is we're continuing to think about, if you think about serving or shackling, I think it's going to become clear really quickly, what is this thought?

Right?

And.

And how do I change the thought?

Like, can I shift it into something I could be grateful for, for God for right now, instead of what might happen?

The next question or thought is, is my thought tied to trying to control an outcome?

Because we don't control, you know, yes, we control our output, our effort and our outlook.

But.

But we don't know what's going to happen right, in our lives, in the world, any of it.

Okay, next is.

Is my thought taking me away from what God already has done here?

What do I mean by that?

What I mean is this.

Like, in the case of my son coming home from college with, you know, struggling with depression and things, the thoughts that I'm just like, praying for God that, I mean, praying to him and thanking him that, like, that my son is still safe right now and that he was home and that he was letting us help him.

Those are the things that I wanted to be focusing on.

And then, of course, it was.

I wanted to be focusing on just how do we support and nurture our son without, you know, like, going over the top and then him not wanting to speak to us.

And then how do I just keep praying to God like that?

I'm so thankful for right now that like, we were able to still continue that walk with our son to try to get him help.

So is the thought taking me away from what God's already done?

Well, God's already done.

He.

I'm certain.

Weeks before my son came home, I had this feeling, this call.

I think, you know, God speaking to me in the spirit and saying, like, call your son.

And then it was very specific what I felt called to tell him.

And the honest truth is I think he needed to hear that.

And in the next couple weeks, I just kept checking in on him in a different way.

And he had never shared a word with us prior to this.

This was spirit led, just knowing that something wasn't quite right.

And a couple weeks later he called us to say he needed to come home like that day.

And.

So I had all of those things to be thankful for.

That God prompted me to call him.

That God kept guiding my heart to check in on him in a, in a way that was different than we were checking in on him before and that, that I continued to share with my son the message that we, we were only concerned about his health and happiness and everything else can always be figured out.

And so my point is, there were so many things where God was faithful, where God showed up, where God led us to where we needed to be.

And so that's what I'm saying is instead of then getting so hyper focused on is he going to be okay, you know, whatever, I needed to focus on how faithful and how much God had come through and kept him okay, even when he struggled.

So that's what I'm talking about there.

Okay, the next question or thought is this, Am I more focused on my problem or the one who can do all things?

Which speaks to what I just said.

But once again, when we keep reminding ourselves or we write down every prayer that God's answered in our lives before, every blessing, every bit of favor he's given us, it's a lot easier to focus on him instead of our problems.

For instance, this could be about anything.

But let's just say that you're, you have a relationship where you're struggling.

Like some part of your relationship, it could be in your marriage, it could be some other relationship, but.

And then you continue to feel like there's no way that, like this can't get fixed, you know, like it's a train wreck and you don't see a way back onto the railroad, you know, or the path.

But instead of praying to God and continuing to say like, God, I know you're in this, and I know you can.

You can fix this.

I don't know how.

I don't see the way forward, but I know you can do it.

So.

So we just need to be careful that we're not so stuck in what we're walking through, our circumstance that we forget that God is above all of it.

And he's always moving, he's always doing things, but he's often moving and doing things well ahead in the future that we can't understand or see yet.

So just be faithful and remember that he is almighty.

And your problem is not.

The next thing is, is the thought I'm having or the anxiousness or the feeling or whatever I'm ruminating on, is it stealing my peace or my joy?

Because if it is, now let me be clear.

We're humans.

We're going to go through things.

We're going to deal with things.

We might have times where maybe money is tight, or maybe one thing after another's hit us.

So financially we were fine, but all of a sudden we have bills crashing, coming at us.

Yes, I understand that we're going to have that sense to want to worry about it.

That is normal.

The.

The struggle is, how do we see God in it and believe him for what he says, which that is that he will take care of us more than he takes care of the birds and the flowers and everything else.

So how do we believe the scripture?

How do we believe God for the promises that he shows us in the Bible and that he says he'll do and that we have seen so many examples in other people's lives, and hopefully our own, where he's done these things before.

So.

And yes, it may not come in the timeline we want, it normally won't.

But we just need to keep believing God for that.

And so I think it's.

It's important because if we start realizing that we don't have peace or we don't have joy, we can have the thought.

But then what do we need to do with it?

Do we write it down and just like, ask God, like, please help us through this.

Give us the wisdom, Lord, help us, you know, get through this to a.

A place that you know will be blessed.

Is there someone maybe that comes to mind that could help us with it?

So in other words, I'm not saying don't have the thought.

What I'm saying is we don't want to be ruminating on the thought so that it steals our peace and our joy, you know, or our ability to be present in our day so that we can be blessings to other people and that we can show up and serve the people where we've been stationed, right where we've been put.

And so that's what I'm talking about today.

But here's the honest truth.

Like I told you, I don't think of myself as an anxious person, but the honest truth is I have over many decades, I've had a lot of internal anxious thoughts.

So not about everything, like I'm a pretty even keeled person.

But there was always these little dialogues going on in my head, you know what I mean, about certain things.

And if I'm being honest, it's usually about keeping, you know, people I love safe and protected.

But it's one thing to pray that over them, and it's another to be worried, worried, like, oh my gosh, what if this happens?

And I was finding that in different seasons and different times that that was what.

What was filling my mind more than it should have.

And, you know, one, praying the scripture and then praying.

So most days I have a prayer journal here.

And this one prayer journal isn't one where I'm writing in it every day.

What it is, is every time I either think of a prayer that I want to say more than once, or I hear somebody's good prayer, or I write maybe like our Father in here and things like that.

So it's a journal that I keep adding to prayers, you know, in scripture.

And so what I do is I have different sections.

And so I will say prayers over my children.

I will say prayers over removing any, you know, any negative things that happen in our life and things.

So I mean, it's much more specific.

But my point is doing these prayers daily, definitely one, gives me a peace, unlike just being worried about the thing.

And then two, once again, focusing on where is God already coming through?

What has he already done?

And how can I stay more grateful and present instead of getting caught in my thoughts?

And so if this is something that you relate to too, I think going back to the thing I said early in this episode, I'm going to try to find it again about what does it really mean to have the spirit of fear, like to be walking in that.

And it's what it really means is that we are then not in the realm, we are not in the presence of God.

And I don't know about you, but for me, I want to be in the presence of God as much as possible because I know what it feels like to be there.

And that is where I want to be.

That is where I want to spend as much time as possible.

And so knowing that fear is a region outside of the presence of God, knowing that it honestly puts a fire under me, that, that if I remind myself of that when I'm afraid, when I'm anxious, when I'm worried, when I remind myself of that, it's going to make it, I think, so much easier to say, yes, Lord, I want to be in your presence and I want to release this thought because I think the thing is, is a lot of times our outlook, right, our perception is what determines our reality.

And so we have to start looking at our thoughts.

We have to start looking at what it is that we are letting you know in our head and what we're spinning around up there.

And I do want to let you know as I wrap up today, I do have a free download for you you can go grab from my website, KristinFitch.com Go to my workbooks page and it's called rewire your mind.

I think it's a little lower on the page, but it's a great couple step way that you can shift your thoughts, especially if you're finding you're having like negative thoughts or just thoughts that aren't serving you.

It just, it's a couple simple little practices that help you shift your thoughts and to get out of that, you know what you're thinking about.

So go grab that.

It's a great resource.

And as I wrap up, I just want to share with you two other scriptures that remind us not to be afraid, not to worry.

So Hebrews 13:6 says, so we say in confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.

What can mere mortals do to me?

Oh, love that.

Okay, so I hope today's episode gave you something to think about and hopefully help you if you're somebody like me, where you've been stuck ruminating or spinning on the same things and they're stealing your joy, they're stealing your, your peace, or they're just keeping you out of the presence of God.

So I hope today's episode helps you in some way.

Like I said, go grab that workbook.

And I am super excited.

I actually have something coming out that's going to let some of us walk together as we actually work on getting in the presence of God in all areas of our life.

So I can't wait to share that with you in a coming episode.

So until next time, I hope you have a great week.

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