Lesson 10 of 11 · Chapter: Balance

Awe Over Anxiety

Read time: about 8 minutes · Skill: keeping work in its place through rest and awe

Lesson 9 said lead toward flourishing. This lesson exposes the thief that steals flourishing from the inside: a life out of balance. Chapell builds it on Psalm 127 and a child's drawing, and hands you one sentence to carry for years: awe is the antidote to anxiety.

The story that frames the chapter

An elementary teacher told her class, "Draw a picture of something your father does every day." One child drew a family at breakfast, except for the father, who was running out the door. Over every child's head floated the same caption: "Hurry, Daddy, hurry!"

The child was Chapell's son. The father bolting out the door was Chapell himself. He could justify it all: important work as a busy church executive, hustling to provide, training people for ministry. But he could not escape the question: if my son's primary image of me is running away from him, something is out of balance in my life.

Then he names what you may be feeling. This entire book may have increased your struggle, because it keeps saying your work is a holy calling where you honor Christ in everything. That can pile on the pressure. A friend once told him, "Whenever I sit down, I feel guilty." That, Chapell says, is not what God intends. So he turns to Psalm 127:

Without him, the work is pointless

The core truth of the psalm is blunt: without God's blessing, our work is pointless. You think you can hone your talents and multiply your energy and your life will prosper. But a hiccup in the economy, a mistaken ledger entry, a car that crosses a center line for a fraction of a second, a microscopic virus, a child's wrong step, and life as you know it unravels faster than you believed possible. The psalmist is telling you: you can dedicate yourself to the work that needs to be done, or to the God who actually gets the job done.

Remember who is speaking. "The Lord" here translates Jehovah, the Almighty, the Creator whose throne is heaven and footstool is earth. Jesus is the radiance of that Lord, and one day every knee will bow (Phil. 2:10-11). If he is Lord over all, then you can never exclude him from any space or time. You do not get to say, "Jesus, you are Lord at church, but the workplace is mine." He is Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all.

He gives to his beloved sleep

Now the gift at the heart of the chapter. Chapell received a letter from Rene Quimbo, a missionary in the Muslim portions of the Philippines: "We heard gunshots the other day and the sounds of running feet. The coffee and the rubber farms were on fire. We were told it was most likely intentional. Many tears were shed, but we prayed that what people intended for evil God would work for good. We don't know how, but because God is good, it should work out so. So, we could sleep."

Those last words echo Psalm 127:2: "He gives to his beloved sleep." When you genuinely turn your concerns over to the one who creates and controls all things, with trust in his love, you can sleep. And here is the sentence Chapell wants burned into you:

If we are awed that Almighty God loves us and is working all things toward our best, we really can be free from anxiety. "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you" (Isa. 26:3).

The two addictions, and the work under the work

Psalm 127:2 describes two kinds of people. One is addicted to activity, the workaholic, rising early and resting late. Chapell smiles at Demosthenes, the ancient Greek statesman who worked night and day thinking the world would fall apart if he stopped, and shaved half his head so he would be too embarrassed to go out. The other is addicted to anxiety, feeding on worry for the energy to engage the day. Both look productive. Both are faithless at their root.

The difference between responsible planning and destructive anxiety is always what is driving it. Usually it is fear: fear of losing stuff, or fear of losing significance. Jim Carrey, in a moment of startling candor at the Golden Globes, said he dreamed of being a three-time winner, "because then I would be enough... and I could stop this terrible search for what I know ultimately won't fulfill me." Accolades never finally satisfy. Tim Keller puts the diagnostic as a question: what is "the work under the work" that you do? What fear is actually driving you?

The gospel answers that fear. God does not love you because of what you have accomplished. He loves you because he gave his Son for you. You have his identity: precious child. So you can take rest, because God's got this. You wake refreshed, with courage and energy that come from confidence in him, not from anxiety.

Rest is a condition of the work

Rest keeps getting harder. Technology makes us available twenty-four hours a day. Chapell mourns that the airplane seat, once his one refuge from phones and email, now has Wi-Fi. He read an article titled, "What Would Jesus Do with a Smartphone?" and concludes: he would turn it off occasionally.

More and more we are rediscovering the wisdom of Sabbath: God can do more with our lives in six days than we can in seven of nonstop labor. Even secular employers require vacation days, because they know an unrested worker becomes unproductive. The Sabbath is a declaration of freedom and a sign of a balanced life: if we do not rest, we cannot work.

And balance is seasonal. On a panel of pastors' wives, one senior statesman's wife declared that a pastor's wife must be at church every time the doors open. The other wives exchanged worried looks, until they realized she was an empty nester with no nursing babies or carpools. Different seasons of life carry different demands. Children are a heritage, an inheritance we steward for a time; their souls are eternal, while our bank accounts and titles are not. Family is more important than business advancement. Not because work is bad, but because proportion is godly.

Grace for the imbalanced

Chapell keeps both his children's drawings. Years after the "Hurry, Daddy, hurry!" picture, his youngest daughter got a similar assignment, but the question had changed to "What do I like best about my daddy?" Her captions: "He plays games with me. He makes good oatmeal. He jogs with me before supper." He keeps them by where he exercises, to celebrate that by God's grace he made some progress. I was not always in balance. I still cannot get it right for very long. No one can. That is why Psalm 127 is ultimately about God's provisions for his beloved, secured for us through Jesus Christ. His grace is sufficient for new priorities, one season at a time.

Make it real this week

Balance begins with naming the fear and the rest you actually need. These answers save in this browser.

Go deeper

Where this is going

Balance asks what holds your work in proportion. The final chapter asks what your work finally says. Chapter 11 turns to Witness, and it opens with a bank teller who handed out devotional books and saw nothing happen for six years, until a stranger said, "I received the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior." Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount frame it: you are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And the punchline you may not expect: your good works are as important as your words.